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YOUNG MAN'S BOOK 



OR 



i\l-€ huatbit. 



BY 



WILLIAM HOSMEE 



"Knowledge is power."— Ba.con. 



XI 






AUBURN: 
DERBY AND MILLER 



1852. 



1 - 



« 1 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by 

WILLIAM HOSMER, 
In the Clerk's Office of the Northern District of New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY 

THOMAS B. SMITH, 
216 William Street. 



^nhxi. 



Much has been written on education, and much that is 
of great value ; but in this, as in other departments of 
literature, there is yet room for improvement. No great 
improvement, however, can be expected while our views 
continue to be drawn from the school-room rather than 
from the philosophy of the human mind. Modes of teach- 
ing may be better or worse without materially affecting the 
general question of intellectual capacity, or in any degree 
adjusting the matter of instruction to the actual wants of 
that capacity. For want of greater care in this particular, 
the course of education, at the present day, wears an as- 
pect of obsequiousness truly painful to one who believes 
the mind of man to be still capable of excelling in original 
achievements. Excessive veneration for the past cuts off 
all hope for the future. 

. Though we have many works on education, it must not 
be understood that we have many on self-education. The 
subject has not been entirely overlooked, but it has seldom 
received the attention which it deserves. The schools have 
enjoyed a monopoly of public solicitude, and private edu- 
cation has laid neglected as a thing of no importance. 
What was within the reach of the unaided student, few 
have inquired ; and he has been left to be something, or 
to be nothing, as chance might direct; for all agreed he 
could never be a scholar. Here, therefore, books are la- 
mentably scarce. But little has been written on the sub- 



IV PREFACE. 

ject, and that little not always in the manner best calculated 
to promote the ends in view. The best work, upon the 
whole, is that entitled, " The Pursuit of Kuoiclcdge ■under 
Difficulties,'" and which was originally published in England 
by the " Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." 
The matter of these volumes is excellent enough, but it is 
mostly without arrangement, and without reference to those 
principles of mental philosophy which the examples ad- 
duced are so well adapted to illustrate. It is too nearly a 
collection of anecdotes to answer the purpose of a scientific 
treatise. Dr. Channing's little work on " Self- Culture," and 
the spirited review of it by Dr. Edwards, are both valuable 
as far as they go ; the only possible objection which can be 
made to them is, that they are not larger. Since the last 
sheet of this work was printed, the author has met with a 
small volume on " Self- Cultivation" by Isaac Taylor, the 
well-known author of "Natural History of Enthusiasm." 
It bears marks of the writer's eminent talents, although for 
elegance of style and depth of thought it can hardly be 
compared with seme of his later ^productions. Whatever 
may be the defects of these publications, it was from no 
wish to supersede any of them that the following work has 
been prepared ; the principal motive was to supply a more 
comprehensive view of the subject. 



<Cnithitt& 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 7 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION 

OF THE HUMAN MIND 18 

CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATION 38 

CHAPTER III. 

SELF-EDUCATION ....... 46 

CHAPTER IV. 

PRACTICABILITY OF SELF-EDUCATION . . .52 

CHAPTER V. 

PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS 72 

CHAPTER VI. 

MECHANICAL FACILITIES 104 

CHAPTER VII. 

PATRONAGE . . . . , , .115 



Yl CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PACK 

PECUNIARY RESOURCES 127 



CHAPTER IX. 

HINDRANCES TO SELF-EDUCATION . . . .138 

CHAPTER X. 

MOTIVES TO SELF-EDUCATION 200 

CHAPTER XI. 

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS DEMANDED BY THE ENTER- 



PRISE 



221 



CHAPTER XII. 

ERRORS OF SELF-EDUCATION 236 

CHAPTER XIII. 

SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC RULES .... 256 

CHAPTER XIV. 

SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS 263 

CHAPTER XV. 

INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES .... 277 



THE YOUNG MAN'S BOOK, 



INTRODUCTION. 

The primary object of this work is to offer 
some encouragement to those whose circum- 
stances are such as to deprive them of the 
ordinary advantages for intellectual cultiva- 
tion. Of this class are those young persons 
who have neither the time nor the money de- 
manded by the usual course of education. 
It cannot have escaped the observation of 
any one that our schools, however excellent, 
do not meet the wants of a large portion of 
society. These institutions can furnish only 
instruction ; the means by which the student 
is to be supported come not within their pur- 
veyance. Now if education is to be had at 
school, and nowhere else, the persons to 
whom I allude can never be educated, be- 



8 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

cause the necessary means are beyond their 
reach. It is useless to inform such individu- 
als of advantages to be enjoyed under other 
circumstances ; they are doomed to conflict 
with necessity, and it can only add to their 
mortification to be made the subjects of im- 
pertinent directions. That education is to be 
had at school, they very well know ; that 
good books are to be preferred to poor ones, 
and that reading is to be conducted with 
diligent attention, they are also aware ; but 
all this has nothing to do with their case, as 
they can avail themselves neither of the one 
nor the other. It is of no use to give direc- 
tions that cannot be followed, and unless 
suggestions can be made which will remove 
the embarrassments connected with this class 
of youth, it is but justice to refrain from in- 
sulting their misfortunes by abortive advice. 
Youth of this description need and desire 
instruction ; they feel the difficulties which 
press upon them, and would gladly find re- 
lief. But few, however, are able to appreci- 
ate their situation or give them that assistance 
which the nature of their condition demands. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

Too often aspirations originating from such 
minds are discouraged as fruitless attempts 
against fate,, and the daring individual is re- 
minded of the seemingly impassable barriers 
in the way of his advancement ; and then, 
finding himself overlooked by the popular 
system of instruction, he is but too apt to ac- 
quiesce in the fatal conviction that, with re- 
gard to him, education is impracticable. 
Believing that there is no necessity for yield- 
ing to difficulties of any kind, these pages 
will be devoted to the interests of unfriended 
youth, and will take up their hopes precisely 
where existing arrangements and mistaken 
advice would lay them down. 

There is another class of persons equally 
large, and. equally within the range of ob- 
jects comprehended by this work ; I mean 
those of maturer years, who are either settled 
in life, or engaged in business under such 
circumstances as measurably to exclude them 
from literary advantages. Most conditions 
of active life allow comparatively little time 
for literary and intellectual cultivation ; and 
if a person commences business with limited 



10 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

attainments in literature, he is almost sure to 
end with less. Yet this melancholy result 
is not invariable. Some of the most distin- 
guished names in the annals of science were 
men who acquired their learning amid the 
uninterrupted toils of a laborious trade or 
profession. It is believed that what has thus 
been done in a few instances, ought not to 
be attributed solely to superior powers. Much 
is unquestionably to be ascribed to the trans- 
cendent abilities of these men, but they them- 
selves could never be made to impute their 
success to this cause. What seemed to oth- 
ers a mystery was to them plain ; they knew 
the steps by which their eminence had been 
gained, and believed that others had only to 
make the same attempt to become alike dis- 
tinguished. Modesty may, perhaps, have con- 
tributed something to this opinion, as merit 
is not allowed to assert its own claims ; but 
abating all that is requisite on the ground 
of undervaluation, still we are obliged to 
conclude that they owed at least as much to 
the character of their efforts as to the extent 
of their abilities. Knowing the efficiency of 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

a judicious method, it is not surprising that 
they forgot the peculiar advantages with 
which, in their own case, it had been pur- 
sued. We cannot hope that all men will so 
far extricate themselves from the entangle- 
ments of a business life as to profit by any 
suggestions of this kind ; the desire for im- 
provement too frequently diminishes with 
the same pace that opportunities decrease. 
There are those, however, who feel more 
keenly as they advance, and the desires 
which actuated them but feebly in youth 
have become irrepressible in riper years. 
With these, the full importance of the sub- 
ject was never felt until experience had con- 
firmed the truth of early convictions and a 
change of circumstances assured them that 
the most favorable period for education had 
already passed. The loss of a single hour is 
to be regretted, and every additional hin- 
drance is, in some sense, an evil, but it will 
be seen that facts authorize no discourage- 
ment, and the indomitable spirit need not 
acknowledge any insurmountable obstacle. 
Independent of these considerations there 



12 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

are a variety of reasons for discussing more 
fully the laws of mental improvement. "Were 
it ascertained that education is exclusively 
the gift of schools, we yet require to be bet- 
ter informed on what principles it is impart- 
ed. This is demanded not less by the phi- 
losophy of mind than by a desire for that 
continued advancement which is rendered 
necessary by the circumstances of active 
life. Youth cannot learn at school all that 
is requisite for practical purposes. Much 
they may acquire, but the stock of theoreti- 
cal knowledge with which they enter upon 
the world must receive additions and cor- 
rections. They must continue to learn, and 
as they cannot always remain at school, it is 
essential that they should know whether fur- 
ther improvement is practicable or not. If 
not fully convinced of the affirmative of this 
question, they will think their education is 
completed, and rest where others have done 
to the great disgrace of learning. It will be 
the object of these pages to supply hints that 
may be useful even to those who enjoy all 
the advantages afforded by the schools. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

One purpose wliicli we have in view is to 
impart a self-sustaining influence to the mind. 
More miss their way at all periods of life, 
and in all the varied pursuits of human ex- 
istence, by mistaking their own capacity for 
action than from all other causes combined. 
The competency of mind for great under- 
takings is not always to be known but upon 
actual trial ; however, in general, the indi- 
vidual has a strong conviction of ultimate 
success. This conviction is one of the most 
considerable motives to perseverance, and 
indeed was principally influential in first di- 
recting the mind towards the object which it 
is seeking to accomplish. We have most 
reason to apprehend a failure in any effort 
from the decay of this species of confidence. 
It is a strong motive power indispensable to 
every enterprise. "While it can be kept in 
vigorous exercise, there is but little danger 
of defeat ; under its inspiration the person 
becomes unconquerable. Early life is per- 
haps more favorable to this kind of inspira- 
tion ; yet it properly belongs to every period, 
and is, if I mistake not, the natural and 



14 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

necessary result of observation ; it is an in- 
tuitive conviction, impracticable perhaps to 
others, but entirely within the grasp of its pos- 
sessor. Failures have a tendency to dimin- 
ish it, and on the other hand it is always 
increased by success. 

Again, there is a certain loftiness of design 
to which practical efficiency is much indebted. 
Where the aim is too low, where great things 
have not even been attempted, much success 
must be a matter of chance. For this reason 
it is peculiarly desirable to elevate, and keep 
elevated, the standard of endeavor. Meagre 
attempts are justly rewarded with correspond- 
ing poverty of effects. To keep the mind 
resolutely engaged in proportion to its ca- 
pacity, is not always practicable, at least in 
every case ; there will be occasionally a fall- 
ing off in the most resolute natures, but vigi- 
lance re-awakens the slumbering energies 
and shakes off every inferior purpose. Man 
should not supinely sit down and revolve the 
gloomy conception of inability ; he ought to 
be thankful that there are difficulties enough 
to put his strength to the test — that there is 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

an opportunity for him to develop those fine 
qualities which, in other ages, have given 
celebrity to mankind. 

This essay is not intended to subserve 
merely theoretical purposes ; it has no interest 
in any system as such, nor will it aim at 
more than aiding somewhat the great object 
of the schools — mental improvement. This 
done, and the writer has nothing more to 
ask ; but he cannot believe that existing 
arrangements are such as to secure all that is 
practicable ; they may avail under certain 
circumstances, but there are those, and many 
of them too, whose interests are untouched 
by the ordinary course of things. For these 
other arrangements ought to be made, that 
the culture of mind may not be limited to 
classes of men who accidentally can command 
a given amount of money. 

These observations render it unnecessary 
for me to say that this work is not designed 
as an attack upon the prevailing system of 
education. None can more sincerely recom- 
mend to youth an early and prolonged enjoy- 
ment of the advantages afforded by our schools 



16 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

than the writer ; none can more truly wish 
that these advantages were universally availa- 
ble. But this, it is well known, they are not 
and cannot be. A great revolution must 
occur in society — a greater than has ever yet 
been known — before even the lowest grade 
of literary institutions can become accessible 
to all. Something more is demanded than 
free tuition ; books, clothing, board, direc- 
tion, and exemption from the restraints of 
parental authority, wherever that authority 
is averse to such pursuits, are equally requi- 
site. JNTow if such difficulties are to be en- 
countered in finding access to subordinate 
institutions, there are certainly much greater 
ones to be met when our attention is directed 
to institutions of a higher grade. Schools of 
this class are not only less frequent and less 
economical, but they offer their assistance at 
so late a period that the youthful mind is in 
great danger of being pre-occupied. Before 
the preparatory academical education can be 
secured, many are drawn into the vortex of 
active life, and lost to all the advantages of 
knowledge. TVe have then only to make the 



INTRODUCTION". 17 

best of that necessity which hitherto has 
proved unavoidable, and give such directions 
to youth as their embarrassed condition re- 
quires, and the known ability of the human 
mind will justify. 

2 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTITU- 
TION OF THE HUMAN MIND. 

Evert system of education must depend 
for its success upon a strict conformity to the 
laws of mind. Peculiar circumstances might 
give temporary efficiency to a system wanting 
in philosophical adaptation, but the subse- 
quent and general result would justly forfeit 
public confidence. From the limits, how- 
ever, which must be assigned to this chapter, 
I shall aim rather to lay down principles than 
to discuss them. 

1. The operations of the intellect are uni- 
form in manner. By this I mean that what 
the intellect does, it does in one way, although 
the result of its action is not always the 
same ; it reasons, remembers, j)erceives, ima- 
gines, and performs every other act of which 



CONSTITUTION" OF THE MIND. 19 

we know it to be capable, in the same in- 
scrutable manner, and apparently without 
any plurality of organic powers. In fact, all 
acts of the mind are only modifications of 
thought, and in affirming that these acts are 
characterized by a certain uniformity, we 
merely assert that, in this respect, the process 
of thinking is subject to no perceptible varia- 
tion. This uniformity in the practical opera- 
tions of the mind shows that its various facul- 
ties have been constituted with similar per- 
fection ; that its powers are equally endow- 
ments from the Creator, and independent of 
contingent circumstances. If only a part of 
our intellectual faculties had an inherent 
competency, we should be disqualified for 
our present existence ; for there is not a day 
nor scarcely an hour of active life in which 
the perfect use of all these powers is not in- 
dispensable. Because they are thus equally 
necessary, they have been constituted equally 
perfect, and placed with the other instinctive 
powers of human nature, beyond the reach of 
any considerable organic improvement, and 
wholly independent of cultivation. The at- 



20 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

tributes of the mind, like the members of the 
body, derive their perfection simultaneously 
with their existence from the creating hand. 
From their conservative tendency they have 
been made constituent parts of our being : 
and so far from being dependent upon educa- 
tion are they, that education is wholly depen- 
dent upon them. The idiot is incapable of 
mental culture, and every degree of imper- 
fection in the intellectual faculties is attended 
with its proportionate incapacity for educa- 
tion. The uniformity of manner which we 
ascribe to the functions of the intelligent 
principle has too often been overlooked by 
metaphysicians, and they have involved them- 
selves in numberless errors by attempting 
what in its nature is impracticable — an expo- 
sition of the secret springs of mental action. 
Not satisfied with knowing that the mind is 
endowed by nature with a capacity for cer- 
tain acts, they have aimed to detect and 
bring to light its occult methods, and thereby 
strip its acquisitions of all mystery. Such 
subjects were once deemed legitimate objects 
for philosophical inquiry, and under the in- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 21 

fluence of this conviction the most eminent 
men freely entered the lists of fruitless 
speculation. 

2. The operations of the mind are intui- 
tive. Intuition implies the spontaneous ex- 
ercise of natural powers. ¥e think as natu- 
rally, and I may add, as necessarily as we 
breathe, and the mind no more learns to 
think than the body learns to respire. 
Hence, whatever modification of thought 
may be put forth, whether it be memory or 
imagination, perception or reason, it is the 
effect of unoriginated capacity, and involved 
in the constitution of an intelligent nature. 
Some metaphysicians have very carelessly 
ranked intuition as a distinct faculty of the 
mind, whereas it is in no sense a faculty, but 
merely denotes the manner of all the facul- 
ties. Of this process we know nothing ex- 
cept its occasional dependence upon certain 
physical conditions, as, for instance, in per- 
ception, where the mind is mechanically as- 
sisted by the organs of vision. But as we 
cannot perceive how the mind operates upon 
these instrumentalities, nor comprehend any 



22 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

of its essential powers, we are forced to ad- 
mit that it acts by intuition — that is, in a way 
which we do not understand, but which re- 
quires neither previous time nor previous 
preparation. 

3. It is further to be observed, that these 
acts of the mind are naturally perfect. In 
this respect the strictly intellectual faculties 
bear a striking analogy to the corporeal 
senses, and to the involuntary functions of 
the physical system generally, none of which 
become more perfect by the lapse of time, or 
admit of essential improvement by means of 
cultivation. The eye is as perfect, the pre- 
cision of instinct as great, and the self-regu- 
lated movements of animal mechanism as 
harmonious and efficient, in infancy as in 
manhood. And so far as the operations of 
intellect can be traced at that feeble period, 
they indicate the same measure of innate and 
constitutional perfection. 

Not only are the faculties of the infant 
mind perfect, but they possess all the pecu- 
liarities which are to distinguish them in 
subsequent life. A remark to this effect oc- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 23 

curs in one of Dr. Johnson's biographical 
pieces. "That the strength of Sydenham's 
understanding, the accuracy of his discern- 
ment, and ardor of his curiosity, might have 
been remarked from his infancy by a dili- 
gent observer, there is no reason to doubt. 
For there is no instance of any man whose 
history has been minutely related, that did 
not in every part of life discover the same 
proportion of intellectual vigor."* If we al- 
low that the acts of the mind are intuitive, 
their perfection follows as a necessary con- 
sequence, because intuition places them be- 
yond the reach of cultivation. They are the 
result of a process independent of human sa- 
gacity or control, and originate in this man- 
ner, that man might under all circumstances 
be competent to act the part of a rational 
creature. But for this precaution of nature, 
rationality would have been a contingent 
blessing, confined entirely to the precincts 
of education. 

4. Mind acts necessarily, but is capable of 
voluntary direction. Locke observes that, 

* Life of Sydenham. 



24: YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

"our knowledge, as in other things, so in 
this, has a great conformity with our sight, 
that it is neither wholly necessary, nor wholly 
voluntary."* Action appears to be as natu- 
ral and as indispensable to the intellectual 
as to the material part of the human system. 
"Whether the intelligent principle ever inter- 
mits its activity, is another question, and 
one, which, however it may be decided, can- 
not determine the mode of its operation in 
our conscious moments. The eye sees in all 
ordinary cases, by constitutional necessity, 
and yet its action may be suspended either 
by sleep or the will of the individual. It is 
not optional then, with the intellect, whether 
it thinks or not, nor is it altogether able to 
determine the objects about which its con- 
stant activities shall be employed. That it 
has the power of self-direction, to some ex- 
tent, is certain, although its course is liable 
to a thousand interruptions. It is, however, 
to this capacity for voluntary direction that 
the mind is chiefly indebted for its scientific 
acquisitions. Still its method is unchanged, 
* Book 4, chap. 13, sec. 1. 



CONSTITUTION" OF THE MIND. 25 

and the knowledge which is acquired by vol- 
untary application is gained in the same 
manner as that which is forced upon us by 
nature. All the facts which are requisite for 
man to know do not naturally present them- 
selves to his observation, and he has the 
power therefore of bringing art and industry 
to increase the stock of his knowledge. But 
as the eye has only one method of vision for 
all objects, whether natural or artificial, so 
the intellect scans the creations of its own 
industry and the spontaneous productions of 
providence, with the same intuitive glance. 
Some things we must know, others we may 
know, but contingency neither precludes in- 
tuition nor enables us to dispense with it. 
The various sciences are so many instances 
of truth elaborated by a voluntary applica- 
tion of intuitive powers. Human nature is 
therefore invested with faculties which, if 
they do not admit of material improvement, 
are nevertheless capable of useful direction. 

5. Our intellectual faculties are so consti- 
tuted that the improvement of which they are 
susceptible, consists chiefly in the acquisition 



26 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

of knowledge, and not in the increase of or- 
ganic power. The common impression on 
this subject seems to be that the mental fac- 
ulties exist only in an incipient state, or as 
bare susceptibilities. We are accustomed 
therefore to look upon these powers as germs 
which mnst be expanded in order to form an 
intellectual character. It is considered the 
appropriate work of education to bring them 
to maturity by actual expansion. People 
have seen that the mind is capable of im- 
provement, and have carelessly imputed to 
an acquired perfection of its faculties, what 
can only be properly ascribed to a judicious 
use of those faculties. Impr< >vement is some- 
thing very different from an augmentation of 
constitutional ability; the former may be ef- 
fected by industry, the latter must be the re- 
sult of creative energy ; the one requires 
only the proper use of our powers as they 
now are, — the other demands their recon- 
struction on a larger scale. But in no de- 
partment of nature is organic development 
entrusted to human supervision. Providence 
has made arrangements for the complete en- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MINT). 27 

dowment of its creatures without the need of 
their concurrence. The seeds have not been 
planted to await the culturing hand of man ; 
whatever exists in our nature in a rudimental 
state is attended by influences that ensure its 
spontaneous development and maturity in 
due time for every practical purpose. It is, 
however, from facts connected with the his- 
tory of the mind that this notion derives its 
effectual refutation. Education has never 
been known to add anything to the intrinsic 
ability of the human intellect. In every age 
of the world uneducated mind has proved 
itself equal to the highest efforts of genius ; 
and when brought into comparison with the 
most approved specimens of cultured intel- 
lect, the latter is found to have acquired 
nothing essential by the j^ocess through 
which it has passed. In this respect knowl- 
edge is like wealth — it adds nothing to the 
talents of its possessor; a man may amass 
property, but his physical and intellectual 
faculties will remain the same as before. 
Were it the case that our minds could be thus 
expanded, the results of education would be 



28 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

greatly modified, and every weak under- 
standing would find a sovereign remedy in 
the invigorating power of science. Such a 
pleasing consequence of industry might be 
gratifying, but it has never yet occurred, and 
never can, until ' the laws of nature are 
changed. Man now brings to the study of 
truth, powers which gain nothing by his re- 
searches, or at least nothing more than the 
eye gains by seeing, or the body by exercise. 
Their first and their last exhibitions are equal. 
]STo great character that has appeared in any 
department of human enterprise, has ever 
been less acute or less efficient in his first 
than in his subsequent efforts. Sir Isaac 
Newton made his two most important discov- 
eries, Fluxions and Gravitation, before his 
twenty-fifth year. A long life, with all the 
advantages of constant study, did not enable 
him to display greater skill in scientific re- 
searches. Had his faculties been capable of 
such an expansion as is commonly supposed, 
the latter period of his life must have been 
marked by a corresponding brilliancy over 
the earlier nart of his intellectual career. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 29 

Another objection to this view of the subject 
is, that an increase of organic power is 
wholly unnecessary. "We do not need a de- 
velopment of new powers, but simply an ap- 
plication of those which we already possess. 
The mind has unemployed strength sufficient 
for all its wants. It is now competent to 
know every useful truth, and any addition to 
its ability would be as superfluous as it is 
impracticable. 

Now although the idea of eliciting the 
powers of the mind, and thereby giving them 
a perfection not otherwise attainable, and 
which they did not previously possess, is 
obviously unphilosophical, as well as contra- 
dictory of facts, yet it remains an established 
truth that intellectual improvement is both 
practicable and necessary. "While the acqui- 
sition of knowledge has no organic effect, it 
still subserves all the important uses for 
which it was intended. Knowledge is a 
species of treasure accumulated to be applied 
as the wants of life require. It is a power 
which the mind has learned to employ for its 
own advantage. Mechanical powers add 



30 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

nothing to the strength of man, and yet by 
their means he is able to accomplish under- 
takings inconceivably beyond his unaided 
capacity. In like manner art and science 
contribute nothing to the mind, though 
through their instrumentality it can effect the 
most gigantic achievements. Archimedes 
baffled the power of armies, Columbus terrified 
the inhabitants of the West India Islands 
into submission, and La Place quieted the 
fears of mankind as to the " wreck of matter 
and the crush of worlds" from obicular de- 
rangement ; but in neither instance did these 
great men rely upon their unaided faculties, 
or wield any other power than that which 
science supplies to every diligent student. 
By nearly all that civilization exceeds a 
savage state, are we indebted to the trans- 
forming influence of science — an influence 
not restricted to superior abilities, but as uni- 
versally available as anything can be which 
depends upon the industrious application of 
common-sense. The savage has powers abun- 
dantly sufficient if he would apply them ; 
the attributes of his mind need only a proper 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 31 

direction to make him the peer of civilized 
man. His faculties need no improvement 
but that which is derived from the possession 
of knowledge, nor does his condition require 
any but that which arises from the use of his 
faculties. 

6. The acquisitions of the mind depend 
upon its own exertions. I shall not inquire 
how the first idea makes its way into the 
mind, nor whether such idea is innate or not ; 
such an inquiry appears to me both useless 
and absurd. We might as well inquire when 
the first sound fell upon the ear, or the first 
pulsation dilated the heart. Mind began to 
think when it began to exist, and its thoughts, 
which we term ideas, can be traced to no 
origin but the instinctive activity of its own 
nature. Man thinks because he is made a 
rational creature, and he will continue to 
think while this attribute of his constitution 
remains, however assisted by the suggestions 
of sense, or embarrassed by the want of innate 
ability. Rejecting speculations of this kind 
as too intricate to be successful, and too 
profitless to deserve attention, we fix upon 



32 YOUNG MAX'S BOOK. 

the far more important question which re- 
lates to its subsequent advancement. It is 
not necessary to remark here by what modi- 
fication of thought, knowledge is most likely 
to be gained, as that subject must necessarily 
Come up in another part of this work. Aside 
from that knowledge which is inseparable 
from a rational being, there are yast collec- 
tions of scientific truth to which the mind 
has only a contingent relation ; they are not 
among its necessary, but- its possible attain- 
ments. That the contingency involved in 
these acquisitions is nothing but mental exer- 
cise, is a proposition almost too plain for 
argument, and yet it has been overlooked in 
practice and in theory, until many imagine 
that knowledge is acquired by some mysteri- 
ous and unassignable process over which in- 
dustry has no control. The difference in the 
attainments of different individuals may, in 
part, be ascribed to a diversity of intellectual 
endowments, and, in some degree, likewise, 
to the character of their opportunities ; but 
the prevailing circumstance by which the 
knowledge of each is determined will be 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 33 

found to consist in the extent and judicious- 
ness of personal application. 

7. The acts of the mind are uniform in 
manner and perfect in nature, hut greatly 
diversified in the character of their objects. 
From this variety of direction, there naturally 
arise the various descriptions of mental charac- 
ter to which we give the name of genius, and 
which are generally supposed to imply some 
constitutional superiority. Intellectual parity 
finds few advocates, though there are sufficient 
reasons for believing that all minds are en- 
dowed by nature with about the same degree 
of strength. This conclusion is justified by 
the actual attainments of every rational indi- 
vidual. "If all human science were to be 
divided," as Rousseau says, " into two por- 
tions, the one comprehending what is common 
to all mankind, and the other only that stock 
of truths which is peculiar to the wise and 
learned, he can scarcely be regarded as 
delivering a very extravagant paradox, in 
asserting that this latter portion, which is the 
subject of so much pride, would seem very 
trifling in comparison of the other," But of 

3 



34: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

this greater portion, we do not think, as he 
truly says, partly because the knowledge 
which it comprehends is acquired so very 
early, that we scarcely remember the acquisi- 
tion of it, and still more, perhaps, because 
since knowledge becomes remarkable only 
by its differences, the elements that are 
common in all, like the common quantities 
in algebraic equations, are counted as nothing. 
" If we knew nothing more of the mind of 
man, than its capacity of becoming acquainted 
with the powers of so vast and so complicated 
an instrument as that of speech, and of ac- 
quiring this knowledge in circumstances the 
most unfavorable to the acquisition, without 
any of the aids which lessen so greatly our 
labor in acquiring any other language far 
less perfectly in after life ; and amid the con- 
tinual distractions of pains and pleasures, 
that seem to render any fixed effort absolutely 
impossible. V\ r e might, indeed, find cause 
to wonder at a capacity so admirable. But 
ii we think of all the other knowledge 
which is acquired at the same time, even by 
this mind, which we have selected as one of 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 



DO 



•the humblest, — what observations of phe-' 
nomena, what inductions, what reasonings 
downward, from the results of general ob- 
servation to particular cases that are analo- 
gous, must have occurred, and been formed, 
almost unconsciously, into a system of physics, 
of which the reasoner himself perhaps, does 
not think as a system, but on which he founds 
his practical conclusions, exactly iri the same 
way as the philosopher applies his general 
principles to the complicated contrivances 
of mechanics, or the different arts. When 
we think of all this, and know that all this, 
or at least a great part of all this, must have 
been clone, before it could be safe for the 
little reasoner to be trusted, for a single 
moment, at the slightest distance from the 
parental eye, how astonishing does the whole 
process appear; and if we had not oppor- 
tunities of observation, and in some measure, 
too, the consciousness of our own memory, in 
our later acquisitions to tell us how all this 
has been done, what a variety of means must 
we conceive nature to have employed, for 



36 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

producing so rapidly and so efficaciously, this 
astonishing result 1"* 

The acquisitions which are thus uncon- 
sciously made by every ordinary understand- 
in^, are no less remarkable for their character 

■ 

than for their extent, as they comprehend 
facts of every order, from the highest to the 
lowest that can be addressed to the human 
mind. lS"o greater intellectual power is re- 
quisite than has already been exercised by 
every individual, for there are no harder 
tasks than have already been performed. 
But, notwithstanding, while under the tui- 
tion of nature, all minds seem to possess 
equal ability, we find when left to them- 
selves a marked disparity — or what appears 
to many as a disparity. Genius is regarded 
as indicating superiority of mind, rather 
than peculiarity of direction. It would be 
idle to deny that some minds have a pecu- 
liar aptitude for particular acquisitions, but 
it is no less absurd to suppose that such 
minds are correspondingly great in all other 
departments of intellectual effort. This ap- 
* Brown, Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. 2, p. 170. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 37 

titucle is by no means the result of any un- 
common endowment ; for the fact that every 
mind has sufficient capacity while its educa- 
tion is directed solely by nature, shows that 
the difference in question cannot be ascribed 
to a want of constitutional ability. Even 
the weakest mind actually learns enough to 
demonstrate its capacity for the highest at- 
tainments. 



CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATION. 

The supremacy of human nature is one 
of mind. Man with no more knowledge 
than a brute would be as powerless. His 
constitution as a rational being, gives him an 
inevitable superiority over the lower orders 
of animal existence ; but he is also capable 
of diversified and extensive attainments 
which can only result from a voluntary ap- 
plication of his faculties. This application 
and its results we are accustomed to denomi- 
nate education. The term is derived from 
the Latin word educo, which signifies " to 
nourish," "to bring up," "to draw out," 
" to teach or instruct." These definitions 
obviously include the two-fold idea of or- 
ganic development and scientific acquisition. 
But it is one thing to determine the etymo- 
ical import of a word, and another to fix 



EDUCATION. 6\) 

precisely the character of the facts of which 
it is made the representative ; for it is well 
known that words are not always used with 
strict regard to their original meaning, nor 
applied alone to things which are clearly 
understood. In the present instance there 
can be no dispute as to the different mean- 
ings which the original word will bear, but 
it may well be questioned whether these are 
all equally applicable to the subject of men- 
tal improvement. Education is generally 
understood to aim no less at invigorating the 
intellectual faculties, than at imparting use- 
ful knowledge ; both objects are considered 
legitimate, if not necessary results of the 
process. But if these faculties neither need 
nor admit of any direct cultivation, as I have 
stated in the previous chapter, it follows that 
the prevalent opinion is unfounded and ought 
to give place to a more philosophical esti- 
mate of the human intellect. The notion of 
organic improvement carries with it a dis- 
couraging tendency, inasmuch as it repre- 
sents the mind to be nothing, or next to 
nothing, until it has been expanded and 



40 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

strengthened by education — an idea more 
absurd than would be the supposition that 
we had no eyes nntil they were elicited and 
brought to maturity by the action of light 
and the process of vision. In the latter case 
onr eyes would still be provided for by an 
arrangement of nature, though somewhat 
delayed ; but in the former case, mind, 
overlooked by providence, becomes solely 
the creature of education — that is to say, the 
noblest attribute of man is not original but 
acquired. It is remarkable that the prevail- 
ing system of education affords no counte- 
nance to this absurdity. Every science 
taught in our schools, has been introduced 
for the ostensible reason that it relates to 
useful facts. ~No object is formally pursued 
but the acquisition of science. Accordingly 
the progress of the student is usually facili- 
tated regardless of the effect which his at- 
tainments may have upon his mind ; he 
studies to know tilings, and knowing them, 
nothing more either is or ought to be re- 
quired. Some sciences, it is true, have been 
thought to exert a more powerful influence 



E D IJ A T i ' 41 

than others in disciplining the mind ; hut 
this*discipline is never formally attempted, 
because the practical philosophy of mankind 
repels their speculative errors. The differ- 
ence of effect Lng to the nature of the 
several truths themselves, or to the method 
in which they are acquired, and not to any or- 
ganic power which they are able to impart to 
the mind. Truth is powerful, and enables the 
mind to do what ignorance had made impos- 
sible. What we impute to discipline belongs 
only to knowledge ; it is the same intellect 
acting with greater advantages — the same 
agent employed under more favorable cir- 
cumstances. The mode of studying some sci- 
ences — a mode rendered necessary by their 
abstract nature, doubtless requires greater 
attention as well as more careful observa- 
tion, and thus by employing the mind more 
fully, adds corresponding advantage, with- 
out any increase of essential power. 

I am obliged, therefore, to conclude that 
knowledge is the principal object of educa- 
tion. Science is to be cultivated, and not 
the mind. In the invention and acquisition 



42 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

of science, there is an ample field for the 
best abilities of human nature, and a field 
where each is competent to act without the 
aid of previous preparation. He who is fur- 
nished with knowledge acquired by his own 
industry, is to be considered as educat 
and his education is valuable or worthless 
just in proportion to the character of the 
facts which he. has learned. Mere assistance 
does not vary the case ; science may be im- 
proved and the labor of acquisition abridg- 
ed ; but the nature of the practical effort, 
and of its attendant effects, is unchanged. 
The manner, as well as the matter of our sci- 
entific pursuits must be estimated solely by 
its tendency to enrich the mind with useful 
knowledge. 

Education includes the means no less than 
the end — the application of the mind no less 
than the knowledge by which it is sure to 
be rewarded. As in all other instances, so 
in this, we find a constant connection betv. 
cause and effect. The common theory which 
ascribes our attainments, in part, to an in- 
creased constitutional ability, does indeed 



EDUCATION. 43 

assign a cause, but one that is wholly imagin- 
ary. In the true spirit of conjectural philoso- 
phy, it overlooks the real and simple cause to 
fix upon one more imposing in a fiction of its 
own creation. Mental activity is an invari- 
able condition of knowledge. Mind must 
think in order to know, and probably must 
know whenever it thinks. Thus a process 
of thought becomes an indispensable part of 
education, and the mind by a voluntary ob- 
servation of truth, is seen to collect those 
treasures of science so essential to its dig- 
nity and usefulness. Diligence here often 
displays itself in favor of mediocrity of tal- 
ents, while genius, regardless of the law of 
improvement, and unconscious of its relative 
superiority, or vainly relying upon its pow- 
ers, falls behind through idleness. We must 
not, however, suppose that education is in- 
tended to teach the mind how to think. Such 
assistance must be superfluous, as nature fur- 
nished the requisite skill . for every intel- 
lectual process, when it formed the mind a 
cogitative being. Then the power of thought 
was placed beyond the reach of contingency, 



4A YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

and to education was assigned the humbler 
office of directing, in some measure, the ap- 
plication of our faculties. 

From these observations it is evident that 
education begins with the first, and ends only 
with the last attempt to learn. But we usu- 
ally employ the term to express those acqui- 
sitions of knowledge which are the result of 
a more special application of the intellectual 
powers. Such efforts are made at school, and 
hence we properly speak of acquiring educa- 
tion at places of this kind ; not that we can 
acquire it nowhere else, for that would be to 
suppose either that we had no minds except 
at school, or that they were useless in every 
other place. An attempt to confine the use 
of the word to such acquisitions as are made 
at school, can only have the effect to destroy 
its meaning. "With many education has now 
become altogether an ambiguous term, in con- 
sequence of its being so frequently misap- 
plied. According to the present usage the 
dunce who passes a few years in some lite- 
rary institution is considered educated ; while 
the talented and faithful, but secluded stu- 



EDUCATION. 45 

dent, may spend his whole life in intellectual 
pursuits, and yet die uneducated. Judged 
by this rule, such men as Franklin, Bunyan, 
Baxter and Shakspeare, had no education ; 
they are believed to have been persons of 
great mind and great industry, but cannot 
be allowed a place among educated men. 

The acquisition of knowledge is the great 
object, and whatever conduces to this, wheth- 
er it is literature or the want of literature, 
the presence or absence of any assignable 
advantage or disadvantage, is a means of 
education, and valuable just in proportion to 
its efficiency in accomplishing the desired 
result. All that the prevalent system of in- 
struction can claim, is that it aids to some 
extent in this work ; it pretends to no sove- 
reign efficiency, nor can it boast of any tri- 
umph over constitutional impediments. Its 
aim is to be a servant of mind, and aid it in 
gathering the treasures of science by means 
of those faculties, which without some foreign 
assistance, are too apt to lie concealed even 
from their possessor, and useless both to him 
and the world. 



CHAPTER III. 

SELF-EDUCATION. 

We have shown in what education con- 
sists ; but that particular form of it n<3w un- 
der consideration, as the subject of this vol- 
ume, requires still further notice. The com- 
mon opinion seems to be that self-education 
is distinguished by nothing but .the manner 
of its acquisition. It is thought to denote 
simply acquirements made without a teacher, 
or at all events without oral instruction — ad- 
vantages always comprehended in the ordi- 
nary course of education. But this merely 
negative circumstance, however important, 
falls far short of giving a full view of the 
subject; it is only one of several particulars 
equally characteristic of self-education as 
contrasted with the popular system. Be- 
sides the absence of many, or of all the usual 
facilities for learning, there are at least three 



SELF-EDUCATION. 47 

firings peculiar to this enterprise, namely : 
the longer time required, the wider range of 
studies, and the higher character of its ob- 
jects. 

Our schools claim only a few years ; they 
graduate students after a comparatively lim- 
ited time, and never again exact lessons from 
them. It is not so with the Alma Mater of 
the self-educated ; she claims life as the term 
of study and gives instruction to the last. 

The course of study in our best literary in- 
stitutions is far from including all that might 
profit the student. Reference is always had 
to the brevity of the period to which his ac- 
quisitions must be confined ; and as a conse- 
quence many branches of science, which un- 
der other circumstances would have had a 
place in the list of studies, are necessarily 
excluded. Self-education, by bringing into 
requisition the whole of our available time, 
provides for an enlargement of the course of 
study. Its plan is commensurate with hu- 
man ability, and exceeds the popular stand- 
ard by all that the mind is capable of ac- 



48 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

quiring beyond the tasks imposed upon it at 
school. 

In the schools, as at present constituted, 
all acquisitions are confined to pre-establish- 
ed science. No effort is made to enlarge the 
boundaries of knowledge, nor is there any 
ambition to do more than fairly understand 
what others have written. This is an una- 
voidable trait of such institutions ; it is im- 
possible to infuse into them a spirit of inven- 
tion and discovery without weakening too 
much that reverence for authority, on which 
their dignity depends. Schools are organ- 
ized solely for the diffusion of knowledge, not 
for its improvement. Their highest object is 
to tread undeviatingly in the beaten path of 
science, without once entertaining those per- 
plexing questions which address themselves 
to such as are engaged in original inquiries. 
But the limits of self-education are far from 
being thus restricted. In addition to culti- 
vating an acquaintance with the attainments 
of former scholars, the student is expected to 
extend his researches to new departments of 
knowledge. The known and the unknown 



SELF-EDUCATION. 49 

are equally legitimate objects of pursuit; 
they are both embraced in the same compre- 
hensive design, and thus united constitute a 
; worthy of the intellectual faculties. 
Now although all these co-ordinate points 
of distinction are necessary to a complete 
survey of this subject, yet we do not wish to 
be understood that the question is not one of 
much consequence, even when considered as 
involving nothing but the mode of attain- 
ment. Let the schools be taken as the stand- 
ard, and it becomes desirable to know wheth- 
er the knowledge which they dispense can 
be obtained by other means. If it cannot, 
then we are obliged to admit as a principle 
in mental philosophy, that the powers of the 
mind are measurably dependent upon these 
institutions. This being the case, those who 
are shut out from such advantages must of 
necessity acquiesce in an inferior scholarship. 
Considered in this light alone the question is 
one of more than ordinary interest. It is, 
however, only by advancing to the other pe- 
culiarities which have been mentioned, that 
we can perceive the true dignity of self-edu- 



50 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

cation. Its means, its plans, its objects, to 
be fully appreciated, must be compared with 
the more circumscribed scheme of popular 
education. Regarded in this connection it 
no longer appears doubtful and imperfect — 
a questionable substitute for scholastic facil- 
ities ; but it assumes an elevation which the 
artificial system can at best but feebly ap- 
proximate. It becomes the great method — ■ 
the exclusive method of improving science ; 
and it opens to the mind the only field suffi- 
ciently extensive for the exertion of its abili- 
ties. Certainly, in this view, the correctness 
of which cannot be disputed, we may justly 
say with a late writer, that "The subject is 
one of immense importance. If language 
contains one word that should be familiar- 
one subject we should wish to understand — 
one end on which we should be bent — one 
blessing we should resolve to make our own 
— that word, that subject, that end, that 
blessing should be in the broadest sense of 
the expression, self-imjyrovement. This is 
alike the instinct of nature, the dictate of 
reason, the demand of religion. It is in- 



SELF-EDUCATION. 51 

woven with all to which it is possible, either 
to aspire or to rise. It appeals to us as men 
• — calls ns to the highest and noblest end of 
man — reminding us that God's image is upon 
us, and that as men we may be great in every 
possible position of life. It tells us that the 
grandeur of our nature, if we will but im- 
prove it, turns to insignificance all outward 
distinctions ; that our powers of knowing and 
feeling and loving — of perceiving the beau- 
tiful, the true, the right, the good — of know- 
ing God, of acting on ourselves and on ex- 
ternal nature, and on our fellow-beings — that 
these are glorious prerogatives, and that in 
them all there is no assignable limit to our 
progress."* Such is self-education. 



* Rev. Tryon Edwards, American Bib. Repos., Jan. 1841. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

PRACTABILITY OF SELF-EDUCATION. 

That self-education is practicable, must ap- 
pear from various sources. So evident indeed 
is this fact, that the purpose of this chapter is 
illustration rather than argument. According 
to the view just exhibited, it assumes the 
character of a self-evident truth, and as such 
demands investigation but not proof. The 
following are the principal sources relied 
upon for supporting the position here taken. 

1. The nature of education. Education is 
the effect of mental industry directed to the 
acquisition of science. !Now we must admit 
that self-education is practicable, or deny that 
the mind is capable of thinking without the 
aid of a teacher. 

2. Faculties of the mind. These are natu- 
ral endowments, brought to perfection, like 
our physical powers, without the aid of hu- 



SELF-EDUCATION. 53 

man culture, and operating intuitively with 
unimprovable exactness. Such faculties place 
education within the reach of all, and make 
the customary facilities for learning, matters 
of mere convenience, which may safely be 
dispensed with whenever circumstances re- 
quire. Powers of this instinctive and pre- 
existent character cannot consist with mental 
vassalage except upon the condition of vol- 
untary acquiescence on the part of their pos- 
sessor. 

3. Condition under which cdl original sci- 
entific pursuits are prosecuted. I speak not 
now of acquisitions made at school, for in 
these institutions neither students nor teach- 
ers often aim at originality. But there are 
other if not higher intellectual researches 
constantly devolved upon the mind under 
circumstances which do not admit of the aids 
of supervision. !Not to mention that we are 
ushered into a world where much of our suc- 
cess even in common affairs depends upon 
our own unaided powers of observation, it is 
obvious that every scientific improvement 
must be the effect of self-directed energy. 



54: YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

That which is not known cannot be taught ; 
therefore if we have anything new in science, 
it will be the result of original and independ- 
ent efforts. Could all be satisfied with things 
as they now are, and yield themselves to one 
unvarying course of instruction, then the 
mind might always be guided by authority, 
and the schools would become the chief dis- 
pensers of knowledge. But this cannot be. 
Science must advance beyond its present po- 
sition, and every step of its progress will be 
the triumph of individual genius over the di- 
dactic art. Our schools do not originate 
science, and the different branches taught in 
them are contributions from the intellectual 
wealth of the solitary student. Instruction is 
confined to principles already established, 
and pupilage ceases where invention begins. 
Hence it follows that self-education is as 
practicable as the search of truth, and every 
science is a monument of its success. 

4. Incompetency of schools to furnish the 
requisite knowledge. That literary and sci- 
entific institutions can teach what they pro- 
fess to teach, we have no doubt ; that much 



SELF-EDTJCATION". 55 

of what they teach is profound and useful, it 
would be folly to deny. Still there are de- 
partments of knowledge in which they are 
obviously unable to afford instruction, because 
the attainments of those who would be pupils 
are far in advance of those who must be 
teachers. What college or university could 
have instructed Copernicus in astronomy, 
.Galileo in optics, Columbus in navigation, 
Shakspeare in poetry, Locke in metaphysics, 
or Newton in mathematics ? We are aware 
that some of these men had been educated at 
college, but the exalted acquirements which 
have handed their names down to posterity 
were not the fruits of college life. In every- 
thing peculiar to them, or in any way affect- 
ing their greatness, Locke and Newton were 
as really self-educated as Columbus and 
Shakspeare. These men aspired to what was 
unknown in their times ; their researches ex- 
tended beyond the supposed boundaries of 
science. 2\To institution could either aid their 
inquiries or determine the propriety of their 
course. From this it is evident that the high- 
est and most successful efforts of the mind 



56 YOrXG- MAN'S BOOK. 

are necessarily independent of tuition. And 
if the noblest achievements of which the in- 
tellect is capable, can be accomplished with- 
out a teacher, may not every inferior task be 
easily performed in the same manner? In a 
word, if able to originate science, may not 
the mind readily acquire that which otb.ers 
have originated ? 

5. Incidental character of the assistance 
afforded ly schools. The diligent student, 
although pursuing his studies at school, will 
in fact be self-educated, for his teachers have 
nothing to do but hear him recite. He re- 
peats in their hearing what he had learned 
alone, and as much alone, as if such an insti- 
tution had never existed. It is not, th 
fore, too much to assert that a thorough 
dent is necessarily his own instructor. His 
industry renders assistance superfluous, -' and 

* An early tutor of Sir Walter Scott notes this particular 
in the education of that extraordinary man. •• Though, 

the rest of the children placed under my tuition the 
conducting of his education comparatively cost mo but lit- 
tle trouble, being by th ■ quickness of his intellect tenacity 
of memory, and diligent a i to studies, generally 

equal, of himself, to the acquisition of those tasks I or 

rs prescribed to him. So that Master Walter might be 



SELF-EDUCATION. 57 

pushes him forward faster than the current 
of instruction could cany him, or than will 
allow him to profit by its favoring tendencies. 
But even the dullest and most dependent 
scholar receives only an incidental and un- 
important advantage from the office of in- 
struction . His time, his attention, his memory 
and his judgment must be in constant requisi- 
tion in order to gain the knowledge which he 
is supposed passively to imbibe. And yet 
these requisites comprise everything essen- 
tial to self-education. They have given us 
all the sciences which we now possess, and 
must give us all that we are hereafter to 
possess. The dependence which is created 
by leaning upon a teacher, seems to include 
nothing more than the difference in facility 
of comprehension between written and oral 
directions. That is, the advantage of the one 
is as much greater than that of the other, as 
a man can teach better than a book ; it is the 
simple difference between writing and speak- 

regarded not so much as a pupil of mine, but as a friend 

and a companion, and. I may add. as an assistant also." — 
Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. 1, p. 86. 



58 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

ing. This, to be sure, is conceding the fact 
that every book is a teacher, and that those 
who have access to books are never without 
a competent instructor ; yet the use of books 
has become so common that they have ceased 
to be looked upon in this light, and are re- 
garded merely as pre-requisites to instruction. 
Hence they are employed in schools as much 
as in private, and the sphere of the living 
teacher is reduced to hearing recitations, or, 
in more general terms, to securing on the 
part of the student a thorough acquaintance 
with such standard works as are embraced in 
his course. If an author can be understood 
without additional assistance, then the labors 
of another teacher are not necessarv, and 
may be dispensed with whenever convenience 
requires. Of the possibility of dispensing 
even with books, we shall speak in another 
place. 

6. History of literature. — Education has 
never nourished in proportion to the multi- 
plicity of schools. Its foundation lies deeper 
in human character than can be reached by 
such a cause. Literature and science are 






SELF-EDUCATION. 59 

rarely pursued because they can be ; a higher 
motive is requisite ; a motive, the inspiration 
of which will render assistance useless, and 
set difficulties at defiance. The origin of 
literature is buried in the deep shades of 
antiquity, and we shall forever remain igno- 
rant of the exact circumstances under which 
it arose ; but this is the less to be regretted 
since its progress, with which we are familiar, 
must involve the very same principles which 
originally gave existence to the art of writing. 
Under certain circumstances individuals and 
nations have always devoted themselves as- 
siduously to the cultivation of letters. This 
event has occurred either when superior 
talents have discovered the need of learning, 
or when popular energy has by degrees mel- 
lowed communities from barbarism into re- 
finement. Literature is one of the results of 
activity — of that general activity on which 
all improvement depends. It is remarked by 
Mr. Keightley, that many of the best works 
have been produced in times of great excite- 
ment. " Though we cannot conclude that 
literary genius is the creation of political cir- 



60 YOUXCt MAX'S BOOK. 

cumstances, yet we may observe that it usually 
jars synchronously with great political 
its. It was during the Persian and Pelo- 
ian wars, that the everlasting monu- 
ments of the Grecian muse were produced ; 
I it was while the fierce wars excited by 
religion agitated modern Europe, that the 
most noble works of poetic genius appeared 
in Italy, Spain and England. So also the 
first band of Roman poets were co-existent 
i the Punic wars, and the second and 
more' glorious, though perhaps less vigorous 
display of Italian genius, rose amid the 
mities of the civil wars."* Arabic litera- 
ture flourished during the Saracenic conquests, 
but has ever since declined ; and Chinese 
literature, together with that of most Eastern 
nations, is evidently a legacy handed down 
from more enterprising times — its present 
possessors not being able to make any im- 
provements, nor even to maintain the original 
trust unimpair 

Learning is a commodity which the ignorant 

* Kcightlcy's History of the Roman Empire, part 1, 

CllJM. 1. 



SELF-EDUCATION. 61 

and the idle do not want, and whatever may 
be the facilities for its attainment, such per- 
sons cannot be successfully persuaded to seek 
it ; they have other and more congenial pur- 
suits, requiring less of the mind, and answer- 
ing better the purposes of immediate gratifica- 
tion. Schools have rendered literature more 
accessible, but they have added nothin 
the force of those convictions on wl 
prise depends, and hence are to be re< 
only as an arrangement of secondary charac- 
ter — as a dictate of invincible purpose. It is 
from this purpose which can always command 
the means for its own accomplishment, that 
literature emanates, and not from our halls of 
learning. A cause which thus produces at 
once both science and its facilities, is surely 
equal to self-education. 

7. Successful examples of self educated 
men. Had it been ever so impossible in 
theory to trace the cause of education to any 
other source than that of scholastic institutions, 
still the numberless examples of self-education 
would have effectually contradicted such a 
conclusion. Both in ancient and modern times 



62 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

a very large proportion of distinguished names 
are found to have risen to eminence bv their 
own unaided exertions, and often in spite of 
yet greater disadvantages from positive oppo- 
sition. It cannot be expected that from a 
list so extensive, we should select more than 
a few instances on the present occasion, and 
these will be taken from the moderns, as their 
history is best known. 

Shakspeare, who stands confessedly at the 
head of dramatic literature, and who is one 
of the boldest, most profound, and most correct 
writers of any age, was altogether his own in- 
structor. It is true that the events of his 
early life are not well known, but enough is 
known to render it certain that the elevated 
conceptions and inimitable style which have 
immortalized his writings, were not the gift 
of academic shades, nor of pedagogic toil. 

Pope ranks high in the first class of original 
poets, and is justly acknowledged to be first 
among the translators of poetry. But lie 
assumed from choice, not necessity, the re- 
sponsibility of educating himself — a task well 
executed if enduring fame may be taken as 



SELF-EDUCATION. 63 

the measure of success. Dr. Johnson thus 
alludes to the subject : " Pope, finding little 
advantage from external help, resolved thence- 
forward to direct himself, and at twelve 
formed a plan of study which he completed 
with little other incitement than the desire 
of excellence."* 

Thomas Simpson, one of the ablest math- 
maticians that Europe has produced, and 
the author of several valuable treatises, was 
entirely self-taught. 

Defoe, whose name is familiar to most rea- 
ders by his unrivalled tale of Robinson Crusoe, 
was an extensive and elegant writer, but in- 
dependent of scholastic training. 

Sir William Herschel contributed more 
than any other modern astronomer to that 
department of science, although he was from 
first to last his own teacher, and the maker 
of all his telescopes. 

Sir Humphrey Davy not only mastered the 
science of chemistry without assistance, but 
extended his researches until important ad- 

* Life of Pope. 



64: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

ditions were made to that department of 
knowledge. 

Dr. Franklin's eminence as a statesman 
and a philosopher is as little questionable as 
the fact of his being entirely self-educated. 

Dr. John Mason Good was a scholar of the 
highest order in almost every department of 
science ; in medicine, in natural science, in 
classical and in oriental literature. 

Another of similar acquirements, except, 
perhaps, in medicine, and the last to which 
I shall now refer, was the late Dr. Adam 
Clarke. This eminent man was no less dis- 
tinguished for oriental than for classical lit- 
erature. His proficiency in almost every 
science was too well known to leave a doubt 
of his being one of the maturest scholars of 
the age. But these, like the rest of the in- 
dividuals here mentioned, received no assist- 
ance from colleges or universities. These 
examples are quite sufficient to show that 
education is within the reach of determined 
industry, whatever may be the paucity of 
external advantages. 

There is, however, another class of learned 



SELF-EDUCATION. 65 

men who properly belong to this category ; 
I mean those who for various reasons left the 
university without finishing their studies, or 
who were eminent before entering there. 
Among the former are Lord Bacon, Gibbon 
the historian, and Sir Walter Scott ; the first 
two having left the University through dis- 
gust, and the last, that he might apply him- 
self more particularly to his legal studies. 
That this designation does no injustice to Sir 
Walter, we have the very decided testimony 
of Mr. Lockkart. " As may be said, I be- 
lieve, with perfect truth of every really great 
man, Scott was self-educated in every branch 
of knowledge which he ever turned to ac- 
count in the works of his genius."^ Among 
the latter are Grotius, Johnson, Murray, and 
Gifforcl. One of the works of Grotius, writ- 
ten prior to his entering the University, is 
said to be equal to any which he afterwards 
published. Dr. Johnson gives us the follow- 
ing statement of his early attainments. " It 
is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew 
almost as much at eighteen as I do now. My 

* Life of Scott, vol. 1, p. 104. 
5 



66 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

judgment, to be sure, was not so good ; but I 
Lad all the facts."* Dr. Alexander Murray 
and William Gilford, both, gained for them- 
selves places, the one in a Scotch, and the 
other in an English University, solely by the 
merit of their unquestionable and unaided 
scholarship. 

8. The nature of science.' — -We have shown 
that the faculties of the mind have a peculiar 
competency for the reception of truth — an 
aptitude which neither admits of material 
improvement, nor needs it. This fact natu- 
rally teaches us to look for a corresponding 
adaptation of science to those faculties, and 
the slightest observation is sufficient to show 
that the character of this relation is recipro- 
cal. Knowledge is the food which satiates 
our intellectual appetency and gives strength 
to the mind — not indeed organic capacity, 
but supplies the means by which organic 
capacity becomes efficient. Hence the pleas- 
ures of science, or the attractive influences 
of truth, have ever been considered one of 

* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 2, p. 44. Johnson en- 
tered at Oxford in his nineteenth year. 



SELF-EDUCATION. 67 

the principal inducements to study. Milton's 
elegant description of these delights is familiar 
to all. " We shall conduct you to a hill side, 
laborious, indeed, at the first ascent ; but else 
so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects, 
and melodious sounds on every side, that the 
harp of Orpheus was not more charming."* 

It is further to be remarked that the truths 
of science are level to all observers. Educa- 
tion gives no new faculties, nor does it essen- 
tially invigorate those which nature has given 
us. The elements of knowledge, the facts 
which make up every science, are intuitively 
obvious to the diligent mind. All may per- 
ceive them who will take the pains, as la- 
bor alone is the price of their acquaintance. 
They are like a favorite view which can be 
had only from the summit of some lofty 
mountain, but which is equally within the 
reach of all whose industry surmounts the 
rugged ascent. Capacity for such acquisi- 
tions is manifestly co-extensive with common 
sense. There is no fact in science either 
above the comprehension or beyond the reach 

* Tractate on Education. 



68 YOUNG- man's book. 

of an ordinary intellect. Eeligion presents 
ns with trutns more profound and more im- 
portant than human research has ever glean- 
ed from the study of nature ; and yet the 
mind of man — of man through all the grades 
of intellectual character, down to where re- 
sponsibility is lost in mental weakness — is 
competent not only to understand, but to 
carry into successful practice the highest 
principles of revelation. This shows us that 
things are not difficult of apprehension in 
proportion to their importance. It requires 
no more strength of mind to understand the 
highest than the lowest truth ; we compre- 
hend truths without reference to their intrin- 
sic character. The idea that great truths can 
only be known to great minds, would forever 
exclude the knowledge of God from all but a 
fraction of our race. Such a conclusion is 
no less subversive of philosophy than revolt- 
ing to religion. There is, therefore, nothing 
impracticable in the nature of science ; it 
can neither be monopolized by the learned, 
nor lost for want of pre-requisites on the part 
of the student. Did truth disclose itself only 



SELF-EDUCATION. GO 

to minds previously developed according to 
the popular notion, then education would be 
the formation of capacities, and industry 
could avail nothing for want of constitutional 
power. But, except as one fact may help to 
know another, the learned have no pre-emi- 
nence above what nature has conferred. The 
natural equality of human understandings is 
not disturbed by the acquisitions of diligence, 
and hence we very frequently see those who 
have little of what is called learning, making 
important discoveries, while the more learned 
waste their time in fruitless speculations. 

Analogy. — In every other pursuit mankind 
are necessarily self-directed ; and it is singu- 
lar indeed if the acquisition of knowledge 
violates the analogy which everywhere else 
obtains in active life. Is man less able to 
direct his mental than his physical energi 
or, rather, is he less able to direct the ei 
gies of his mind when applied to the ac 
sition of science, than when applied to the 
acquisition of physical objects? We r. 
either suppose that some fatality attends the 
use of his faculties in the one instance from 



70 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK 

wliicli tliey are free in the other, or admit 
that he is equally competent whether the 
objects of his action are physical or intel- 
lectual. The only school for great achieve- 
ments is the common theatre of human en- 
terprise, where every man is a master, and 
all are learners. The agriculturist, the me- 
chanic, the statesman, and the warrior are 
thrown upon their own resources, and com- 
pelled to act, not only without direction, but 
frequently in opposition to the maturest coun- 
sel. In the highest department of science — ■ 
that of invention, the same necessity prevails. 
Nothing can be done until the mind acts for 
itself independent of all authority. Even 
where much less than this is aimed at, sci- 
ence obliges all her votaries to an indepen- 
dent course. If they would throw themselves 
forward to future ages, it can only be by at- 
taining such indisputable excellence as will 
suffer no depreciation from the lapse of time 
— by exceeding the standard of their own to 
meet the anticipated progress of future gen- 
erations — by successful competition with the 
past, the present, and the future. That is, 



SELF-EDUCATION. 71 

instead of following authorities, one must 
himself become an authority in order to se- 
cure a lasting reputation. Such exertions 
as are required by an enterprise like this, 
cannot be the subject of tuition. They, de- 
mand an energy and a knowledge as incom- 
municable as genius itself. Thus we have 
seen that in all physical pursuits, and in 
those intellectual operations, which from 
their greatness are removed from the sphere 
of scholastic supervision, the mind is quite 
equal to the task of self-direction, and cannot 
by any possibility, be subjected to pupilage. 
Under these circumstances, can we conceive 
it to be impracticable for any ordinary intel- 
lect to direct its own efforts successfully in 
the pursuit of knowledge, and especially that 
kind of knowledge which is usually taught in 
our schools ? 

In concluding this chapter, I have only to 
say that if these remarks have the appearance 
of claiming too much for self-education, the 
result was unavoidable. Facts admit of no 
compromise. If the human mind is incom- 
petent to this task, it is capable of no other. 



CHAPTEE V. 

PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 

Among the attributes of a successful literary 
and scientific career, perhaps the following 
are the most important. 

1. An elevated and independent purpose. — 
If those who aim sufficiently high, and who 
pursue their object by a right method, never 
fail to find embarrassments enough, what 
hopes can we have of those who are so grovel- 
ling in their pursuits as not even to aspire to 
excellence ? False notions have prevailed 
respecting the sources of knowledge, and the 
mis-direction of the public mind has followed 
as a necessary consequence. The same thing 
has happened to art. It was formerly thought 
that no one could paint successfully unless he 
had seen the works of Raphael and Michael 
Angelo ; a trip to Italy was as indispensable 
as genius itself. Living artists were to be 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 73 

praised only as their works conformed to this 
artificial standard of taste and perfection. 
By degrees, however, the spell was broken, 
and the fact dawned upon the public mind 
that these Italian paintings were but the 
works of men, and might therefore be equalled 
by men who had never seen them. Thi s lucky 
admission of human dignity, so creditable to 
the present age, has reduced the stream of 
pilgrimage to the shrine of the ancient artists ; 
though the sober use of such opportunities is 
still justly valued. A similar revolution has 
yet to take place in science, and particularly 
in literature. Before we can acknowledge 
the claims of any one to learning, we must 
know in what school he studied, and what 
authors he has read. If he claims to be a 
poet, Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton are 
referred to with all the composure imaginable, 
as the true standard of poetic excellence. 
The light of this brilliant triad is converged 
to a focus, in which the unfortunate candidate 
places his work for inspection, and if his 
solitary merits appear to disadvantage under 
these circumstances, the critics gravely tell 



74 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

us the man is deficient in genius. Our direc- 
tions to scholars of prospect are very simple 
and few. They are told to study the great 
masters, and to draw rules from the embodied 
wisdom of the fathers. - How many millions 
have read Homer, and yet were no poets ! 
How many have pored incessantly over the 
volumes of original authors without imbibing 
the spirit and genius they so much admired ! 
We forget that variety is the order of nature, 
and that her productions, though perfect in 
kind, cannot be reduced to any exact resem- 
blance, nor to any uniform standard of 
equality. 'No course that could be devised, 
even if we hit upon nature's own plan of in- 
struction, would raise every jDerson to celebrity 
in the same pursuit ; yet we can easily avoid 
the stupid process of adoption, and by pur- 
suing a more congenial method, arrive at 

* " The best way to learn Rhetoric would be to imbibe 
it at the fountain-head, I mean, from Aristotle, Dionysius 
Halicarnassus, Longinus. Cicero, and Quintilian." — Robin's 
Belles Lettres, vol. 1, p. 840. Longinus gives about the 
same direction, (Sublime, sec. 14.) but in a manner which 
shows that he would not have a writer resign all pretensions 
to independent judgment. 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 75 

whatever distinction Providence may have 
designed. Great authors, like great painters, 
are of some use to the young by way of exam- 
ple ; they show them what can be done with- 
out precedent, and in circumstances such as 
every youth finds to be his own ; but of all 
who need such assistance, the talented and 
ingenious student is the last. He is sensible 
of the merits of each distinguished writer, 
but his style and sentiments are borrowed 
from none — they are his own — they are the 
man, and his hopes are from himself, not 
from others. It is not at all improbable that 
his feelings often accord with the sentiment 
of Byron : 

" Great things have heen, and are, and greater still 
Want of mere mortals little hut their will." 

But for this feeling the author of " Hours 
of Idleness" would never have been the author 
of " Childe Harold." Unless we are animated 
by principles of this kind, we become the 
blind admirers of ancient and foreign great- 
ness ; we put it forever out of our power to 
be anything but inferiors on the theatre of 



76 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

life. Some have maintained that the beauties 
of the ancient poets are shut up in the lan- 
guages in which they wrote ; that they must 
be lost to the world unless those languages 
are studied, as, in their opinion, they can 
never be translated. Leaving the correctness 
of this assertion to be settled by those who 
are interested, I shall only observe that if 
the loss is irreparable, it is by no means 
unmeasured. Our own language has fur- 
nished poetry not inferior to the most exalted 
of Homer's. If the subtlety of their idioms 
should deprive us both of their diction and 
sentiments, we certainly have of our own a 
style as grand, and thoughts as good. But 
why do we thus follow — -no, for this obsequi- 
ous imitation is but the reverse of those deeds 
which we wish to emulate. Our models were 
daring and untrammelled, but we, with vanity 
sufficient to affect their greatness, have not 
wisdom enough to maintain their indepen- 
dence. The necessity for aiming at least as 
high as others have done, and for acting with 
a similar freedom from all restraint, is a 
principle which everywhere pervades the in- 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 77 

cluctive philosophy. Bacon's precepts are no 
less remarkable for their boldness than for 
their success ; take for example the thirty- 
first aphorism of the Novum Organnm. " It 
is in vain to expect any great progress in the 
sciences by the superinducing or engrafting 
new matters upon old. An instauration must 
be made from the very foundations, if we do 
not wish to revolve forever in a circle, making 
only some slight and contemptible progress." 
Independence, or what Dr. Eeid calls a manly 
state of mind, is one of the first endowments 
of a well-regulated intellect. The mind is 
naturally and properly biassed in favor of its 
own conclusions ; but when difficulties occur, 
there is a propensity to yield to authority 
and precedent. Nor may we censure with- 
out restriction, such acquiescence. Yet the 
mind must feel itself competent to decide on 
the soundness of its own conclusions. The 
supremacy of reason over all authority, and 
the sufficiency of reason to establish new 
precedents for itself, are facts, the knowledge 
of which is antecedent to any extensive or 
enlightened researches. Mind can no more 



7S YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

improve without resolving facts into their 
original principles than vegetation can sub- 
sist without acting upon the affinities of 
matter." So accustomed are well-informed 
and vigorous minds to this digestion or resolu- 
tion of truth, as scarcely to have a conscious- 
ness of the process. This process is what 
Mr. Locke terms, "bottoming," and however 
useful it may be for children to find, in 
authority and precedent, a bottom for many 
of their ideas, it is neither wise nor safe for 
us to be influenced by a provision designed 
solely for our intellectual minority. 

2. The next particular is a right direction 
of studies. — Many have failed in attempting 
an education, more from the want of a set- 
tled and judicious plan than from any other 
cause. The object to be attained is definite, 
and the aim should be proportionally accu- 
rate. By education is to be understood a 
knowledge of the sciences, more or less ex- 
tensive, but always comprehending a thor- 
ough acquaintance with their general prin- 
ciples. It is obvious, therefore, that to secure 
this, a course of general reading must be 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 79 

very inadequate. General reading is indis- 
pensable in its place, but it cannot be substi- 
tuted for a course of elementary studies. 
This regular training in the principles of es- 
tablished science is the object before us ; and 
though in itself it is but the preparation for 
action, yet as a preparation it is of the high- 
est consequence. Writers of the last cen- 
tury were in the habit of calling this early 
initiation, the foundation of the fabric of 
knowledge; but the expression is quite too 
strong, as these studies relate less to knowl- 
edge as a whole, than to the particular sys- 
tems of science now in vogue. In some in- 
stances the acquisition will only be as the 
philosophy of Aristotle was to Bacon, and 
the theory of Ptolemy to Copernicus — a 
means of disgust, and the occasion of new 
and unrivalled discoveries. Reflections of 
this kind abate nothing from the necessity 
in question ; for in several of the sciences 
the general principles are fully demonstrated, 
and therefore not injurious, though it should 
happen that still greater advances be made. 
Euclid's Elements have lost nothing of their 



80 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

value by the improvements that have since 
taken place in mathematics. Besides it is 
not easy to judge of the truth or falsity of a 
system with which we are not acquainted. 
If the attention is not steadily directed to 
rudiments at first, the science, even if it 
should afterwards be acquired, will cost much 
more labor than if pursued in the usual or- 
der. It is not, however, intended by these 
observations to convey the idea that the 
present arrangements of science are not 
wholly conventional. But it is of little con- 
sequence who or what may have given form 
to the materials of knowledge, for method 
is only designed to promote convenience ; 
and a very imperfect arrangement must be 
much better than absolute confusion. The 
danger to be guarded against is nothing less 
than the dissipation of force by ill-directed 
efforts. Power exerted without order wastes 
itself to no purpose ; the limited and miscel- 
laneous acquisitions by which it is followed 
are a poor consideration for the time em- 
ployed, and none at all for the opportunity 
suffered to pass without improvement. 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 81 

3. Application^ — It is an undoubted truth 
that without persevering application scho- 
lastic attainments are impossible. All have 
admitted this, but the consequences of such 
an admission appear not to have been duly 
considered. Could all the advantages in 
the world be combined, they would not 
of themselves make a scholar; neither can 
their absence blast the hopes of determined 
application. The power of application has 
been questioned, whereas it is irresistible, 
and with only a right direction can surmount 
everything. But we often fail to perceive 
the practical aspect of things, the theoretic 
principles of which readily obtained our as- 
sent. USTo one will question the necessity of 
study, yet few seem to be satisfied that study 
makes scholars. The sight of eminence 
prompts us instantly to inquire for the helps, 
the extra' opportunities which have led to 
proficiency, as though industry could not 
here claim its appropriate reward. Learned 
men have not only toiled diligently, but car- 
ried to their task a delighted imagination. 
Hopes of usefulness or of fame have ani- 

6 



82 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

mated their hearts to a devotion worthy of the 
objects to which they aspired. Under cir- 
cumstances of this kind the subject is strip- 
ped of all those little mysteries which con- 
fuse the remote observer ; and the connection 
of cause and effect is as visible in the pro- 
found attainments of the sage, as in the al- 
phabetic knowledge of the child which can 
only repeat its letters as they are pointed out 
by the teacher. Scholars and men of genius 
are the last who affect to learn without trou- 
ble, their very efforts being not less remark- 
able than the success bj which they are fol- 
lowed. 

4. Original Observation. — The philosophy 
of study shows at once the power of obser- 
vation. We cannot take the first step in 
learning any science without confining the 
attention to the principles before us. In this 
respect the first and the last steps are alike, 
and to one who had no previous knowledge 
of the subject, equally easy. He who ob- 
serves the character of what he reads will 
not fail to retain what he learns, nor to place 
a just estimate upon its value. It is not 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 83 

enough that we understand an author ; the 
perceptive and reflective faculties must he 
employed upon the nature and execution of 
his work. By thus observing the various ex- 
cellencies and defects of standard writers, 
others have been able to cany forward their 
labors to much greater perfection. Unless 
the learned had painfully perceived the true 
character of those works which engaged their 
attention at school, the rude and imperfect 
manuals of former centuries would still have 
encumbered our seminaries ; and what is of 
far more consequence, science of every kind 
could at best but have continued stationary. 
It was observation that broke the spell which 
the Stagirite cast upon the nations, and that 
shivered the arm of Roman superstition. It 
is observation that must resuscitate the mind. 
Without it intellectual character is but a 
name' — -the scintillation of genius is ex- 
changed for the meteor's glare. These, it 
may be said, are the higher walks of obser- 
vation, the things to be done after knowledge 
is acquired. But of this we are far from 
certain. An excellent writer has said, "The 



84 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

man who first discovered that cold freezes 
water, and that heat turns it into vapor, pro- 
ceeded on the same general principles, and 
in the same method j by which Newton dis- 
covered the law of gravitation, and the prop- 
erties of light. His regulce philosophandi 
are maxims of common sense, and are prac- 
tised every day in common life ; and he who 
philosophizes by other rules, either concern- 
ing the material system, or concerning the 
mind, mistakes his aim."* Observation is 
simply detecting what others had missed, 
finding what others had lost, or discovering 
what only awaited a glance of the eye. It 
is not a power which must be cultivated be- 
fore it can act — not an act produced by pre- 
concerted measures. All that is essential is 
that the person should have discernment 
enough to know the nature of what passes 
before him ; his observations thenceforward 
are the basis of his knowledge. There can 
be no mistake in the perception of coinci- 
dences where the primary facts are well as- 
certained, for we instinctively judge in ac- 
* Inquiry into the Human Mind, chap. 1, sec. 1. 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 85 

cordance with the premises. Here then the 
student has always wrought with the entire 
strength of his mind ; and his assiduity in 
tracing the steps of previous inquirers springs 
from no excessive veneration for their perfec- 
tions, "but from an assurance- that emulation 
can in no other way be so well promoted. 

As an encouragement to this work, let it be 
remembered that truth, which is the object of 
study, does not flow merely from facts of a 
certain order. Every fact has the same ex- 
pression. All truth is in harmony with itself 
and leads infallibly to the same conclusion, 
though not always with the same directness. 
Science is the interpretation of nature. Who- 
ever can seize upon the principle of arrange- 
ment displayed in the works before him, has 
all that science proposes to teach. In confir- 
mation of this, might be cited the history of 
almost every invention or discovery. The 
identity of lightning and the electric fluid 
was established on* both sides of the Atlantic 
at the same time, with considerable variation 
in the train of previous reflection, as also in 
the practical experiment. Seldom is the 



86 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

honor of a discovery clue to one man, and the 
historian finds it difficult to adjust the claims 
of rival pretensions. ~Nov indeed is it easier 
to tell in what age, or in what country an art 
was invented. ]STot in a few instances has 
the discovery or invention been the effect of 
accident; in others it has been the effect of 
premeditated design ; and in all, the wonder 
has been, that so palpable a truth should have 
remained so long a secret. Persons may 
therefore hope, let their pursuits be as they 
will, to make observations that will be use- 
ful. Nor is it certain to what science such 
observations will most contribute. Buchan, 
whose work bids fair to outlive the profes- 
sional reproach with which it w T as hailed, 
says, that most of the improvements in medi- 
cal science have been suggested by j>ersons 
who were not of the profession. The best 
confirmation of this remark is the sovereign 
authority of common sense as acknowlei 1 
in the most popular and valuable works of 
the clay. From these the dogmatism of for- 
mer times is excluded under a conviction that 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 87 

the rational principle is the only test of phil- 
osophic inquiry. 

5. Analytical 'reasoning. — Nearly allied to 
observation is that intellectual analysis al- 
ways employed in the investigation of truth. 
It often happens to the ambitious youth that 
opportunities for cultivation are beyond his 
reach. Acquiescence is impossible. Let the 
difficulties be ever so great, the indomitable 
spirit knows its own strength, and will not 
yield. Every mind is susceptible of emo- 
tions, and the very pain inspired by a sense 
of destitution, furnishes materials for abund- 
ant reflection. The soul will investigate the 
causes of its own misery, and pry into the 
nature of things until it discovers those great 
principles on which improvement and happi- 
ness rest- — principles which constitute the 
goal where the student, whether rich or poor, 
stops from desire as well as necessity. Little 
difference does it make, whence we derive 
the fact subjected to this analysis. Truth, as 
before remarked, is alike in every fact, and 
in its essence inhabits whatever can possibly 
ene;a^e our notice. It is therefore not neces- 



88 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

sary that all aspirants should move in 
same sphere. All the essential elements of 
truth surround each human being at every 
step in life ; still more, they inhere in his 
very nature, and are inseparable from his 
constitution as a rational creature. But the 
man of genius pores over his subject with an 
intense anxiety to enlarge the boundaries of 
knowledge ; he is not content to stop where 
others have done ; he must have other if not 
better reasons, and in short he is impelled by 
a sense of duty to be original, deep and inde- 
pendent in his conclusions. It is only by 
subjecting the stereotyped lessons of science 
to this process, that we can develop those 
latent truths on which the progress of knowl- 
edge depends. That propositions or princi- 
ples now received as elementary are suscepti- 
ble of further analysis to an indefinite extent, 
is a fact no less certain in its character than 
extensive in its application. " The stage at 
which one inquirer stops, is not the limit of 
analysis, in reference to the object, but the 
limit of the analytic power of the individual. 
Inquirer after inquirer discovers truths, 



PRACTICAL DIRECTION'S. 89 

which were involved in truths formerly ad- 
mitted by us, without our being able to per- 
ceive what was comprehended in our admis- 
sion. It is not absolutely absurd to suppose 
that whole sciences may be contained in prop- 
ositions that now seem to us so simple as 
scarcely to be susceptible of further analysis, 
but which hereafter when developed by some 
more penetrating genius, may, without any 
change in external nature, present to man a 
new field of wonder and of power."* 

6. Expansion of sentiment. — If the mind 
cannot go abroad to gather from various 
sources, it takes hold upon whatever may be 
within reach, and out of just the material on 
hand a stately fabric is sure to rise. A sin- 
gle thought must serve instead of libraries. 
Having one principle in possession, the stu- 
dent feels himself connected with the im- 
mensity of truth, and it is soon perceived that 
the applications of which each truth is sus- 
ceptible are more extensive than the best 
powers can accomplish. This idea is illus- 

* Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human 
Mind. Vol. 1, page 490. 



90 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

trated practically by all writers of fiction. 
They assume, in general, some leading fact, 
and on that alone build their subsequent 
speculations. The fact that such works are 
commonly worse than useless, is to be im- 
puted to the sentiments introduced, and not 
to the manner in which they are written. A 
good author never wearies the reader by pro- 
lixity ; however much he may expand the 
thought, his sentences are not wanting in 
substance. Let the reader take up the most 
attenuated essay of Johnson or Goldsmith, 
and he will find it rich in matter, as well as 
beautiful in manner. True genius is prolific 
of thought ; it has the ability to dwell upon 
a theme without degenerating into fiction, or 
being disgusted with the necessary uncer- 
tainties of all intellectual labor. Some of the 
best works extant have been produced in this 
way ; their authors began them with no in- 
tention of writing so extensively, but were 
induced to change their design by finding 
that the subject admitted of greater amplifi- 
cation. Speaking of his Essay on the Human 
Understanding, Mr. Locke says, "When I first 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 91 

put pen to paper, I thought all I should have 
to say on this matter, would have been con- 
tained in one sheet of paper, but the farther 
I went, the larger prospect I had ; new dis- 
coveries led me still on, and so it grew in- 
sensibly to the bulk it now appears in."* 
Another scarcely less celebrated work — the 
Saint's Eest — grew up in the same manner. 
" The second book which I wrote," says Mr. 
Baxter, " and the first which I began, was 
that called the Saints' Everlasting Rest. I 
began to write on the subject, intending but 
a quantity of a sermon or two, but being con- 
tinued long in my weakness, where I had no 
books, and no better employment, I pursued 
it, till it was enlarged to the bulk in which it 
is published." 

7. Universality of thought — Although it 
may often be necessary to spend much time 
in tracing the various relations of a single 
thought, yet there are too many who confine 
their researches to one or a few branches of 
inquiry. Not that it is possible even for 
genius to excel in every department ; this is 
* Epistle to the reader. 



92 YOTJJSTG MAN'S BOOK. 

not to be expected or desired. But when 
important conclusions are to be established, 
it is essential that the mind should compre- 
hend the several relations of the facts to 
which it has arrived. "When conclusions rest 
upon a narrow basis, it is with great difficulty 
that the mind can be brought to feel their 
force, and to many, they will always appear 
no better than consequences deduced from 
hypothesis. The mind can judge of things 
only according to what it knows, and where 
its knowledge is insufficient if it presumes to 
act at all, there must necessarily be an exhibi- 
tion of folly. Such persons are not more 
ready to receive a mystery, nor more easily 
persuaded than others, but they are capricious, 
believing where they should not, and refus- 
ing to believe where there are sufficient 
grounds of faith. And this error must always 
exist where the intellect is not accustomed to 
survey the entire system of things. 

By extending his observations to other de- 
partments of knowledge, the solitary inquirer 
has it in his power to determine the value of 
all existing science, for every known fact 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 93 

must be understood in conformity with* the 
whole. If facts shall yet be discovered which 
clash with any of our principles, we must im- 
mediately modify our previous views to meet 
the demands of truth. The arts and sciences 
are constantly changing from this very cause. 
JSTew discoveries are renovating and enlarging 
former systems, and the prospect of improve- 
ment increases with every accession of facts. 
!Now these discoveries are most frequently 
made by men who, for some reason, have 
avoided the common path. And in estimat- 
ing their merits, praise seems due to the 
course they took, rather than to the vigor of 
their powers. A popular writer has indeed 
cautioned us against relying upon thought 
for the acquisition of any part of our knowl- 
edge. "By thinking," says he, "we can 
arrange what we do know, so that we can 
more readily use it, and we make room for 
other knowledge ; but we cannot think our- 
selves into an acquaintance with even the 
simplest thing that we do not know by some 
other means. It is the belief that we can ; 
that thought can do what thought never did, 



94: TO UN a MAN'S BOOK. 

can do, or was intended to do, which lies as 
a stumbling block-in our path, and hinders 
lis from knowing a great many things that 
wonld be very useful as well as very pleasant 
to us."* If this singular view of the in- 
tellectual economy were to be regarded, we 
should soon cease to think, and the facts fur- 
nished by observation would remain undigest- 
ed in the mind ; there would be neither in- 
ference nor application in reference to any- 
thing we know. But in fact there can be no 
such thing, for the observation which he 
recommends, is but a mode of thinking. It 
is to be sure a mode of thought not altogether 
so prolonged as the mind often has occasion 
to employ, but at the same time it is as really 
thinking as any other exercise of the intellect. 
8. Combination of practice and theory. — • 
Merely theoretical education has been sub- 
versive of the best interests of learning. The 
student removed too much from those associa- 
tions which in practical life so powerfully 
assist the mind, usually retains but a small 

* Mudie, Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature, 
p. 32. 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 95 

part of his acquisitions, and these from the 
circumstances under which they were acquired 
very imperfectly available. It has been 
conjectured, and not without probability, that 
only about one in every thousand of those 
who now study Latin ever acquire a tolerable 
knowledge of that language. Formerly it 
must have been very different, as scholars 
generally were able to read and write that 
language with facility, and many of them 
could speak it with fluency. Now we cannot 
account for this difference except on the 
ground that the mode of instruction has 
deteriorated. To study Latin was once almost 
as easy to the English, and much more com- 
mon, than to study their vernacular tongue ; 
then the language was employed for practical 
purposes, and to the study of abstract rules 
and definitions was joined the force of habit — 
habit, without which such acquisitions can 
neither be perfect nor permanent. If scholars 
do not succeed so well as they then did, it is 
because their attempts are not sustained by 
practice ; because it is nearly impossible to 
learn a language which we do not use. 



96 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

We are not unfrequently embarrassed by 
the repugnance of scholars to the sheer di- 
dactics of the school-room. They are anxious 
for instruction, but the initiatory process to 
most sciences is so painful and repulsive, that 
their patience is exhausted before they are 
enough advanced to feel the inherent impul- 
ses of truth. In this way discouragement is 
dealt out to thousands in the incipient stages 
of instruction, and they are left to deplore 
some fancied idiocrasy, or luckless conjunc- 
tion of the stars, as the potent cause of their 
misfortune. But the real cause consists in 
the dismemberment of nature's plan. We 
have detached parts, to dissever which, if it 
be not death, is at least an end of utility. 
That a child will walk, and talk, and reason, 
is too evident to be disputed ; and yet all 
these things are learned in some way. The 
truth is, they are self-learned, that is, prac- 
tically, or according to nature. ~Nor is there 
anything undesirable to the juvenile mind in 
the process of these acquisitions. Under the 
tuition of nature they learn almost uncon- 
sciously, and each step of the progress is 



PRACTICAL DIRECTION'S. 97 

attended with delight and an irrepressible 
anxiety to proceed. A perfect system of in- 
struction would be attended with similar 
effects when applied to any of the sciences. 
The great peculiarity of nature's method of 
teaching, consists in a series of imitations, or 
incessant practical attempts : on these hinge 
the whole of this extraordinary success. 
Nature evidently pays but little regard to 
theories. She sets her pupils immediately 
to copying. And if authority like this may 
be allowed to suggest the most efficient mode 
of instruction, we must fix upon that which 
employs immediately in practical operations 
the powers of the learner. The astonishing 
success which so frequently attends efforts at 
self-education is mainly attributable to this 
very circumstance. Compelled through a 
want of most of the ordinary means of instruc- 
tion, they who thus distinguish themselves 
enter at once upon a course of original observa- 
tions, guided by such hints as they have 
gleaned from common sources of information ; 
and the result is, that instead of treasuring 
up the ideas' of others, and leaving their own 



98 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

minds destitute of original knowledge, they 
soon acquire those habits of close thinking 
and deep research so essential to eminence. 

Sir William Herschel and David Kitten- 
house, two of the brightest lights in modern 
astronomy, began their successful experi- 
ments and observations almost coeval with 
their first acquaintance with the science. 
And this is the course universally pursued 
out of the schools in communicating the arts 
and sciences. Society left to itself, instinct- 
ively proceeds in the only natural method of 
teaching. Many who are eminent mechanics 
never had any instruction, and nearly all me- 
chanics acquire their knowledge of their re- 
spective trades with very little written or 
oral instruction. Indeed no reliance could 
be placed upon merely verbal tuition. It 
might lead to a knowledge of the theory, but 
could never impart an actual possession of 
the art. This being settled with regard to 
the mode of studying the arts, it becomes a 
question how far the same principle is ap- 
plicable to the study of literature and the 
sciences of the schools. Art, literature, and 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 99 

science, are parts of the same tiling ; there 
is no generic difference between them, and, 
consequently what holds true of one, must, 
with proper restrictions, hold true of all the 
rest. It follows therefore that the study of 
abstract rules unaccompanied by a practical 
application of them, can never make a schol- 
ar, or at least will not be more efficient for 
that purpose than the mere contemplation of 
a work of art is in producing an artist. " It 
ought never to be forgotten," says Dr. Dick, 
" that the habit of accurate composition de- 
pends more on practice, and the study of 
good writers, than on a multitude of rules ; 
and I appeal to every one who is in the habit 
of composing, whether, in the moment of 
committing his thoughts to writing, he ever 
thinks of the rules of syntax, except, per- 
haps, those now specified."* He had just 
cited three or four of the principles of syn- 
tactical arrangement as sufficient, in his 
opinion, for the early information of stu- 
dents. I would only remark, that what is 
true of the rules of syntax, as a help to 

* Mental Illumination, &c., p. 130. 



100 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

writing, is equally applicable to rhetoric, 
and most of the other prerequisites of author- 
ship. Hence it appears that nature may 
succeed without art, but art without nature 
never can. Genius has ever shown itself in- 
dependent of formal rules, and its most val- 
uable productions have originated in the 
absence of those advantages, which, by su- 
perficial observers, are considered essential 
to greatness. So purely original is the mind 
in its achievements, that it seems to lay aside 
all direction and trust entirely to its own 
powers. For this, if for no other reason, the 
acquisition of abstract rules should be re- 
garded of inferior importance to intellectual 
cultivation. The immediate effects of edu- 
cation conducted upon this principle would 
be various and eminently happy. Such use- 
less abstractions and antiquated lumber as 
have been indiscriminately forced upon the 

ntion of youth — things which can never 

be reduced to practice, would give place to 

its of instruction, precisely adapted to 

r wants. Years of time now thrown 
Lse spent upon studies of no prac- 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 101 

tical use, would be saved for the nobler pur- 
poses of life. Instead of transmitting to 
posterity the exact lessons that were taught 
a hundred years ago, the march of inrprove- 
ment would be facilitated, and new discove- 
ries and principles equal if not superior to 
any now known, would be added to f 
former times. Franklin, Watt, and 
with their thousand compeers, -. 
live 'again ; and the vantage .- 
"edge would no longer be cone . 



to whom nature had not denied a 
learning. 

I only intend to say that the poin 
reference has been made are characte . 
not that they are the outlines of a . 
system. Perhaps it is impossible accurat 
to define the elements of a successful prac- 
tice. When contrasted with its opposite, the 
difference will always be obvious, yet 
distinction is too subtle to be embodied in 
words. Original principles cannot be de- 
fined — we can only name them, and enume- 
rate some of their manifestations. We can 
never tell precisely in what form the love of 



102 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

science will display itself; nor is this to be 
regretted since the result is always the same. 
Knowledge is a species of property, and the 
cumulative process substantially the same as 
that by which money is acquired. What- 
ever would be rational as a practical rule in 
other affairs, may easily be transferred for 
the government of literary pursuits. Does 
business require to be closely and extensively 
pursued to render it profitable ? The same is 
true of study, which is only another depart- 
ment of labor, and attended with equal cer- 
tainty of success. Science is truth elaborated 
by thinking, whether recorded on the leaves 
of a book, or retained by the memory alone. 
My observations on this subject have been 
dictated by a belief that ultimate success in 
self-education depends upon invincible firm- 
ness, founded on a Conscious capacity for in- 
tellectual pursuits. And, abstract as these 
remarks may seem, it is hoped they will fur- 
nish some idea of the inceptive workings of 
mind anterior to its bursting from obscurity 
with powers which command the admiration 
of the world. We have omitted those rules 



PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 103 

of study which, although seldom written, are 
practically enjoyed in all good seminaries ; 
they are such as the good sense of a person 
would naturally suggest for his own benefit, 
or rather, such as literary occupation enforces 
upon the attention of those engaged in it, and 
consist essentially in nothing more than dis- 
creetly using the faculties we possess. The 
real advantages of literary institutions are 
often overlooked by those who are debarred 
from attending them, and an anxiety to en- 
joy advantages wholly imaginary, prevents 
their retrieving, by suitable efforts, the real 
misfortunes of their condition. In view of 
this it would be very useful to them to spend 
some time at such an institution, by which 
they would become acquainted with scholas- 
tic habits, and also learn, that even at school, 
knowledge cannot be gained without close 
application to study — the only condition of 
self-education. 



CHAPTER VI 

MECHANICAL FACILITIES. 

1. Books. — The nature of many things is 
lost in their antiquity. What was at first 
solely an effect, from having been subse- 
quently productive of many effects, is mis- 
taken for an original cause. The literature 
of the present day is, with a few exceptions, 
not very ancient. Our books did not produce 
the sciences of which they treat, but on the 
contrary, the invention and maturity of the 
sciences produced the books. Some sciences 
had been invented and taught orally for 
many years before any written record of them 
was made for the public. Such as would ex- 
cuse themselves from the prosecution of truth 
for no other reason than the want of a book, 
must, therefore, be rebuked by all the splen- 
did triumphs of genius for the last three hun- 
dred years. Prior to that period, or before 



MECHANICAL FACILITIES. 105 

the art of printing was invented, books could 
scarcely be reckoned among the facilities for 
acquiring knowledge — they were too dear to 
be generally available, and too few to afford 
sufficient variety. Under such circumstances 
the works of authors were left to accumulate 
in public libraries or in the hands of the rich, 
while those distant from these depositories, 
and especially the poorer classes of people, 
were necessarily deprived of those advan- 
tages which the typographic art has now 
made almost universal. 

A book is but a mere record of what the 
mind has done, and though very useful as a 
guide to inquirers, and nearly indispensable 
as a reference to those already learned, it can 
be regarded only as a convenience ; like 
other conveniences it is far from being es- 
sential. Intellectual fabrics of this kind may 
sometimes reproduce themselves, but they 
are more commonly spontaneous productions 
on which the mind is as little dependent as 
any other cause is on its effects. Books are 
a never-failing consequence of intelligence ; 
they have been manufactured by all nations 



106 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

and by all persons whenever they have found 
any ideas worth writing. "When letters are 
employed as the shrine of knowledge, books 
mnst follow as a matter of course, for it is 
only by collection and arrangement in some 
form that letters can be made to answer this 
purpose ; hence, however useful books may 
be, they are to be considered the effect, and 
not the cause, of mental improvement. 

That books afford great assistance is unde- 
niable, but it must be remembered that they 
assist us to acquire only what others have 
known. Our inarch over the beaten path of 
science may be greatly accelerated by them, 
but they cannot guide us in the unknown re- 
gions of intellectual discovery. Here the 
mind is compelled to act for itself, and the 
independence which thus ultimately proves 
to be unavoidable might safely have been 
adopted at the very commencement of its 
inquiries. 

2. Reading. — Heading is a facility, noble 
and almost unbounded ; it introduces us to 
all the recorded wisdom of the past, and, if 
thinking were not the soul of improvement, 



MECHANICAL FACILITIES. 107 

would probably constitute the utmost limit 
of our inquiries. The natural sources of in- 
formation, except reflection, are necessarily 
circumscribed, and it is only by means of a 
mechanical arrangement of arbitrary charac- 
ters that this deficiency can be supplied. 
Even reflection or thought, which knows no 
bounds and needs no external aid, however 
vast its achievements, must depend upon let- 
ters to give permanence to its acquisitions. 
But reading is chiefly valuable because it 
gives a sensible manifestation of things be- 
yond the narrow sphere of personal knowl- 
edge, thus as it were making words, pro- 
nounced in distant countries and in remote 
ages, and which naturally could have been 
heard only by the few then and there pres- 
ent, fall upon our ears with the same force as 
if we had formed part of the original audito- 
ry. An art which can overcome the evils of 
distance and time, thereby virtually consti- 
tuting us pupils of the greatest masters and 
possessors of the aggregated treasures of his- 
tory, is undoubtedly, as a means of education, 
next in importance to that act of the mind by 



108 YOUNG mail's book. 

whicli it elicits truth and fabricates systems 
for itself. In order to be profitable, reading 
should be extensive. A student should read 
not only what is convenient, but whatever 
comes in his way that is worth reading. ISTo 
good book should escape him. Mr. Todd, in 
his Student's Manual, has particularly cau- 
tioned against devoting too much time to 
reading ; a caution, by the way, as unphilo- 
sophical as it is unnecessary. The hackneyed 
lessons of the text-book are not the whole of 
what should pass through the mind of a stu- 
dent. If it should be thought advisable to 
delay this universal research into books till 
the period of academical studies is past, there 
are objections against this also, to which 
there appears no satisfactory answer. Those 
who were readers before they began these 
studies will find it hard to resist their habits ; 
while such as were not, and do not become 
extensive readers during this period — or upon 
the occurrence of the first opportunity — may 
be set down with that class who, to use the 
words of Byron, " ought to have learned to 
make the paper they waste." Miscellaneous 



MECHANICAL FACILITIES. 109 

reading should not infringe on the regular 
lessons ; nor will it have any such tendency 
where there is much self-government. It is 
in the morning of life that the general intel- 
ligence supplied by "books is most needed ; 
when the character is to be formed, when 
plans for life are to be laid, then, if ever, the 
mind requires the aid of extensive research. 
But commonly at this period the attention is 
confined to elements as a preparation for the 
future, and it is only after that future has 
been gained by the individual, that other in- 
formation is considered necessary or practi- 
cable. It may be objected that a whole life 
would be insufficient to read all the works 
which have accumulated in the libraries of 
the learned. So much the better. If they 
were a thousand-fold more extensive than 
they are, they would be only the more valu- 
able for whatever they exceeded the powers 
of any single reader. Those who think all 
parts of what an author writes of equal im- 
portance, who read by rote, and devour with 
the same avidity, introductions, reflections, 
corollaries, and so forth ; ought indeed to 



110 TOTING- MAN'S BOOK. 

stipulate for some limits to what they thus in- 
discriminately consume. Even the slightest 
acquaintance with a valuable author has its 
uses ; and where all that could be desired is 
not practicable, the little which may be 
gained ought to be more highly esteemed. 
Sir Walter Scott, and many other eminent 
literary characters, owed more to their habits 
of research among books than to any other 
circumstance, genius excepted. Their read- 
ing, however, was almost immeasurable, and 
pursued with reference to plans of their own 
which could not have been perfected by oth- 
er means. 

3. Writing^ — The mind derives the same 
advantages from the pen in delineating its 
thoughts, that the painter derives from his 
pencil in spreading his conceptions upon 
canvass. "Writing is, in fact, but a species 
of intellectual painting. By a mechanical 
process, thought is indicated to the eye with 
as much facility as sound indicates it to the 
ear. But the benefit of writing does not 
consist in merely transferring our ideas to 
legible characters ; a greater benefit is found 



MECHANICAL FACILITIES. Ill 

in the aid which it imparts to acts of inves- 
tigation. Not that the mind knows a thing" 
more perfectly when it is written, than when 
it is not, but from the difficulty of retaining 
thoughts in the memory, we rarely think ex- 
tensively without some more effectual means 
of preserving our intellectual labors. "With 
those who do not write, truth is apt to exist 
in the form of principle only — of principle 
unexpanded and unapplied. The art of writ- 
ing enables us to draw out and amplify this 
abstract material to the best advantage, and 
by furnishing assistance to the thinking fac- 
ulty, prompts it to greater exertion. To this 
increased activity of the mind, more than to 
anything else, we may ascribe the corrective 
influence which attends the habit of writing. 
"It is wonderful," says Dr. Miller, "how 
far the crucleness and inadequacy of a man's 
knowledge on a given subject, may be hid- 
den from his own mind, until he attempts to 
express what he knows on paper. He then 
finds himself at a loss at every step, and 
cannot proceed without much extension, and 
no less correction, of his former attainments. 



112 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

Nay, sometimes lie finds that he must begin 
again, from the very foundation, and that he 
has not really mastered any part of the sub- 
ject."* To the same effect is the well-known 
maxim of Lord Bacon, that "Reading maketh 
a full man ; conference a ready man ; and 
writing an exact man."f That he relied 
upon writing for nothing but to assist the 
memory is evident from that part of the sen- 
tence which immediately follows the above 
quotation : " and, therefore, if a man write 
little, he. had need have a great memory." 
The rapidity with which many writers com- 
pose shows that their thoughts are already 
perfect, and that they have only to transfer 
them as fast as legible characters can be 
made. Yet this is not the case with all, and, 
for want of that mental industry which is 
secured by writing, many unconsciously re- 
main in ignorance and in error. Neither 
should it be forgotten that literary composi- 
tion is no infallible preventive of these evils. 
The labor of writing will not always induce 

* Letters on Clerical Manners and Habits, p. 231. 

•j- Essays, 50. 



MECHANICAL FACILITIES. 113 

caution and depth in thinking ; consequently- 
much that is written partakes of all the im- 
perfection peculiar to an inactive state of 
mind. 

4. Apparatus. — ' c But certain it is, that unto 
the deep, fruitful, and operative study of 
many sciences, especially natural philosophy 
and physic, books be not the only instrumen- 
tals ; wherein also the beneficence of man 
hath not been altogether wanting ; for we see 
spheres, globes,' astrolabes, maps, and the like 
have been provided, as appurtenances to as- 
tronomy and cosmography, as well as books ; 
we see likewise that some places instituted 
for physic have annexed the commodity of 
gardens for simples of all sorts, and do like- 
wise command the use of dead bodies for 
an atomies. "* It is to the great improvement, 
which, since the days of Bacon, has been 
made in this class of facilities, that we are 
indebted for some of the principal discoveries 
in natural science. Nature herself is, indeed, 
a vast laboratory where every element is also 

* Advancement of Learning 1 , b. 2. 
8 



114: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

an instrument, and every instrument is prolific 
of instruction. 

5. Libraries. — Books are so cheap that 
with some little exertion the various elemen- 
tary works may readily be obtained ; but 
bese are by no means to be deemed sufficient, 
►re extensive collections can be procured. 
1 , the money which woidd enable 
purchase a library for him- 
t directed to that object, furnish 
• possible facility for education : 
such pe oils have their choice of advantages — 
they may buy for themselves what others can 
at best but have access to through generosity 
or hire. Large collections of books afford 
opportunities to the student for which he will 
seek in vain elsewhere, and it is a most 
gratifying circumstance that these helps are 
generally available on exceedingly favorable 
terms. Public libraries are either free, or 
the same as free to all who will make a proper 
use of them. But at whatever cost or labor 
such assistance may be gained, the advantages 
will repay the expense and the toil a thou- 
sand-fold. 



OHAPTEE VII 

PATRONAGE. 

It is often of service to youth to point out 
the means by which they are destined to rise. 
By this means the Utopian schemes of child- 
hood, the wild vagaries of imagination, so 
common and so innocent at that age of life, 
will be seen in their true light, and remem- 
bered only as the inconclusive reasonings of 
a mind too little informed, to comprehend 
the conditions of its existence. Before a 
■knowledge of the world has disclosed the 
laws which control the distribution of property, 
we naturally think that a noble design cannot 
fail to find sufficient pecuniary support, nor 
to meet with that encouragement and coun- 
tenance obviously needed in every difficult 
enterprise. But it requires no lengthened 
experience in the practical operations of 
greatness to show us that hopes of this nature 



116 TOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

are fallacious. Yet, rejecting all secondary 
assistance — such as, patrimony, gifts, emolu- 
ments, influence, and so forth — there is suffi- 
cient patronage for every well-constituted 
mind. He who thinks of patronage — in the 
ordinary sense of that term, does but dream ; 
yet such is the strong tendency of the youth- 
ful mind, to lean upon this most precarious of 
resources, that it becomes necessary to indi- 
cate, not only the value of this fictitious 
assistance, but those stern realities on which 
successful enterprise is always hinged. 

1. Want. — There are advantages in want. 
However paradoxical such a proposition may 
seem, time has long since given it the au- 
thority of a maxim. It is an old adage, 
that necessity is the mother of invention. 
But the important truth of this proverb has 
seldom had an extensive application. Some 
occasional success may have been imputed 
to the urgency of want, yet it has not been 
acknowledged as the stimulus of greatness. 
It has provoked no gratitude as a benignant 
agent of Providence ; it has seemed an evil, 
even where, but for its inspiration, life would 



PATRONAGE. 117 

have "been a blank. The destitution of most 
young persons is better calculated to elicit just 
sentiments than a profusion of positive means. 
Experience lias shown that where there is no 
want there is no exertion. The feeling of 
need which presses so heavily upon the young 
aspirant, is worth more to him than thousands 
of gold and silver, for it is by the aid of feel- 
ings like these that he becomes irresistible 
in contending for the objects of his ambition. 
His soul is energized by a consciousness of 
impending evils, and this energy is of itself 
equal to any emergency. Fame has her 
Lent. And from the deep, and never-to-be- 
forgotten sufferings of his early career the 
champion of truth derives a cast of mind 
precisely adapted to the exigences of his 
future life. Cut off from ordinary helps, it 
may be, or perchance, having designs wholly 
extraordinary, and meeting with no corre- 
sponding helps, he assumes responsibilities 
and executes measures on that extended scale 
which takes a universe into its calculations. 
This intellectual hardihood never fails to 
spring forth, sooner or later, where the mind 



118 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

is left to itself. On the contrary, where 
facilities abound, a habit of dependence is 
created, and we insensibly lean upon others 
for advice and for instruction, until, from 
disuse merely, our own minds are no longer 
to be trusted. There is no way of avoiding 
perpetual minority, or premature dotage, but 
to dash out of the beaten track, to set up for 
one's self independently of others. This 
implies no hostility to others or their views ; 
it is merely an assumption of that individuality 
which belongs to man as an accountable being 
and without which improvement is impossible. 
ISTecessity presents us, however, only negative 
advantages. Indispensable they are, but they 
are not alone sufficient. 

2. Providence. — There is a peculiar felicity 
in the thought that between us and the divine 
Omnipotence, there is no intervening agency. 
The association is grand beyond all concep- 
tion, and cannot fail to exert an ennobling 
influence on whoever rightly indulges the 
reflection. All truth belongs to the Creator, 
and he imparts as much to his creatures as is 
consistent with their circumstances. And 



PATRONAGE. 119 

the inquirer, supported by a relation like this, 
cannot easily despond. He does not know, 
but his Helper does ; and hence, if chagrined 
by disappointment, he enjoys the greatest 
possible proximity to those desirable arcana 
which have so universally engaged the solici- 
tude of mankind. It is thus that a sort of 
appeal is made from all sublunary and mo- 
mentary adjudication, to the developments 
of an after life, and the conclusions of infinite 
Wisdom. This appeal, when properly made 
and solemnly felt ; that is, when it is the dic- 
tate of conscience, as well as of the mind, is 
one of the most auspicious events that can 
occur to the intellectual constitution. Rarely 
has a great genius appeared who had not to 
make a public recognition of his depend- 
ence on Providence ; not as a religious act, 
but as a sequence of argument, or, more 
plainly, as the result of his circumstances. 
Where great attainments are sought, propor- 
tionate assistance must be had ; but who or 
what is adequate to the necessities of him 
who takes the trackless path of discovery ? 
He may or may not be caressed after success 



120 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

lias crowned Iris labors, but it is all one to 
him. The assistance by which he toiled is 
not one of those trifling influences that, like 
the thermometer, falls with every depression 
of external temperature ; it npholds him with 
equal dignity in the pursuit, and in the con- 
summation of his object — when the world 
knows not, and also when it contemns the 
purpose of his ambition. 

3. Personal effort. — I come now to that 
part of my subject more intelligible to the 
unpractised eye of youth. If we may be- 
lieve them, few would remain ignorant if 
any exertion of theirs could avail to the con- 
trary. Not every act, no, nor any number 
of acts, unless they are of the right kind, 
will obviate the difficulties in question. But 
there is a competency in juvenile powers 
notwithstanding. ~No permission is to be 
asked, as no one has either the power or the 
right to imprison the soul. Liberty, how- 
ever, is a useless boon if other things are 
misunderstood. Each has what no other one 
can get from him. This is all the freedom 
that should be expected. Every youth should 



PATRONAGE. 121 

regard himself the artificer of his own for- 
tune, be that fortune what it may. If he 
has means of any description, for any length 
of time, it will be because he could not be 
deprived of them by the antagonist forces 
crowding him on every side. Life, it is said, 
is a perpetual war against tendencies to de- 
cay, and the remark is not less applicable 
to knowledge, and the means of prosperity 
in general. In this respect all are on a level, 
no one having more than his individual might 
can command. Yery certainly great ine- 
quality exists as to external advantages, if 
positive aids can alone be relied on, but that 
we can never trust to them is more than 
proved by the negligence and supineness 
which a consciousness of their possession so 
generally inspires. JSTumerous instances of 
failure occur among those who trust to their 
own exertions, but the number is inconsider- 
able when compared with a similar class who 
have had every pecuniary assistance ; and the 
failure is not to be charged to any inherent 
deficiency of means. When not caused by 
error in the application of their powers, it _ 



122 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

has resulted from agencies over which it was 
never intended man should preside. Youth 
may expect assistance, they may think it 
very rational and very natural for them to be 
commiserated, but it is like reasoning in 
a circle, their expectation returns to them 
again, and they can never advance beyond 
their present position. The world is moved 
by motives that are easily apprehended. But 
genius when it calls for patronage is obscure 
and unknown. Let it come to light, let in- 
dubitable proofs of its existence be given, 
and there will be no complaint that it is not 
respected and sustained. I need not add, 
however, that at this stage it has a self-sup- 
porting power, and can do without the hith- 
erto reluctant applause of the world. It has, 
in fact, laid the world tributary at its feet, 
and extorts now what it once solicited in 
vain. It would be all unjust to say there 
were no seasonable patrons. Some there 
are ; yet how few the number, and how im- 
probable that it will ever be greater !* Nor 

* Improbable, because in a long succession of ages but 
few bave received assistance till after the period when it 



PATRONAGE. 123 

is it any cause of regret that efficient patron- 
age can seldom be found, inasmuch as it 
often brings with it a train of disagreeable 
consequences ; creating dependence incon- 
sistent with liberty, even if it does not re- 
quire perpetual inferiority as the price of its 
favors. Powers that are inadequate to estab- 
lish themselves are beset with some radical 
defect that disqualifies them for high preten- 
sions in this rugged world. Why should it 
not be so, since this is the place in which 
their qualities are to be tested % Tears are 
shed in vain over talents that might have 
been conspicuous ; the fact that they were 
not so should allay all uneasiness at their 
fate. Doubtless some circumstances are more 
favorable to improvement than others ; but it 
is the task of genius to rise above every dif- 

was most needed, had passed. Maecenas, the patron of Vir- 
gil and Horace, is usually referred to as an instance of lib- 
erality to literary men. But these poets had long been cel- 
ebrated before they enjoyed the favors of Maecenas. Without 
his patronage they might have died less wealthy, but not 
less renowned. Dr. Franklin knew well what sort of patron- 
age genius required when he established a fund to be loaned 
conditionally to poor young men to aid them in the very 
commencement of their enterprise. 



124: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

Acuity — to force even difficulties into its ser- 
vice, and make them its most efficient helps. 
Often has the pain occasioned "by the absence 
of the usual facilities for science, so wrought 
upon the mind that the powers of observation 
have* struck out a new path to eminence, and 
that necessity which seemed the precursor 
of ruin, has proved the harbinger of fame. 
As well might the unshorn Samson be bound 
with withes as the immortal mind tied to 
ignorance against its own consent. 

It may be doubted whether the connection 
between external advantages and scientific 
proficiency is well understood. Hitherto in 
the race of improvement, they that have had 
many means, and they that have had few, 
have prospered alike ; the pioneer artist or 
philosopher has even held the pre-eminence, 
because there being no perceptible difference 
between him and his successors, it is right 
that the first should hold the place which is 
his by seniority. And we are obliged to 
conclude either that means are like the manna 
of the wilderness, of which " he that gathered 



PATRONAGE. 125 

much, had nothing over, and he that gathered 
little had no lack ;" or, that the mind of man 
is endowed with powers which elevate it above 
dependence upon adventitious circumstances. 
Of these opinions, though both amount to the 
same, the latter is of course the only one ad- 
missible. 

From premises like these, but one conclu- 
sion can be drawn. Genius is an alliance 
with Heaven, and its power over subordinate 
agencies must be derived from the attraction 
of its own splendor. Prior to its ascendency 
in the estimation of others it must rely upon 
the intrinsic efficiency of its own powers. 
This may not seem an inviting view of our 
subject, but fidelity forbids a lighter shade. 
It is not our object to amuse by commenting 
on the respective merits of different modes, 
but to give the substance of all modes. "We 
aim at certainty, and cannot stoop to that 
fastidiousness which shrinks from the bold 
outlines of truth. Let science be acquired as 
it may, these are the essential principles by 
which the student must be governed. He 



126 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

will find in the long run, in the summing up, 
that besides the oppression of want, he had 
no patronage but God and his own right 
hand. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PECUNIARY RESOURCES. 

The preceding chapter, I have no doubt, 
will be thought to indicate plainly enough 
the general character of these resources. But 
this necessary self-dependence has its peculiar 
method of acquisition, and our object now is 
to note the practical details which that method 
imposes. 

1. Industry. — Others may, or may not, be 
compelled to work, but the candidate for self- 
education ordinarily has no alternative ; he 
must either labor industriously for the means 
of support, or abandon his literary hopes 
forever. "Where the desire for knowledge is 
hopefully strong, there will be no reluctance 
in conforming to a necessity of this kind. 
Personal energy is a species of capital always 
invested with pleasure in approved pursuits. 
An unwillingness to labor for the means of 



128 YOUNG MAN'S book. 

education is, of course, an unwillingness to 
labor for education itself, and bespeaks a 
mind of that class for the improvement of 
which no provision has been made in the 
present allotments of human nature. Ex- 
amples too numerous to mention may be 
found of those who have risen to the highest 
eminence of learning, unaided by any finan- 
cial resources but their own industry. With 
some this would be no difficult task, as they 
can command more lucrative situations than 
fall to the common lot ; still, industry has 
always been found sufficient for those who 
have relied on it, whatever might be its com- 
parative returns. Almost any business will 
afford something more than a mere subsist- 
ence, and this surplus may be devoted to 
the purchase of books or other facilities of 
science ; but even where there is no excess — 
where all, and more than all, is absorbed by 
the current wants of physical life — there is 
still enough, because the mind can think, and 
everything is within the reach of thought. 
!No occupation can monopolize intellectual 
capacity, and to the efforts of a determined 



PECUNIARY RESOURCES. 129 

mind, manual labor soon ceases to offer much 
resistance. As an encouragement, it should 
be observed that the world has to do only 
with the results of genius ; it is of no conse- 
quence to us whether the celebrated authors 
of antiquity were rich or poor — as neither of 
these conditions could have had any sovereign 
influence over their productions. 

2. Economy. — If judicious economy does 
not increase money, it accomplishes the same 
thing by increasing the effects of money. It 
is therefore to be reckoned among the most 
important pecuniary advantages, and this 
whether we regard the wealthy or the indigent. 
A poor person who has any just idea of the 
value of knowledge can scarcely be the sub- 
ject of temptations to extravagance ; a desire 
for learning excludes every wish for the 
frivolous objects on which money controlled 
by ignorance is usually lavished. Yet there 
is danger lest the very limited means which 
the impoverished student can command should 
seem to render even economy useless. But 
if the means are small there is only the 
greater need that they should be rigidly 

9 



130 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

applied. It is not for us here to give particu- 
lar directions for such disbursements, but we 
cannot help remarking that they should 
always be governed by the principle which 
influenced Erasmus, when in like circum- 
stances, he said, " As soon as I get money I 
will buy first Greek books, and then clothes."* 
This was good economy — it was strictly in 
accordance with his predominant purpose to 
obtain an education. The late Dr. Adam 
Clarke purchased his first Hebrew grammar 
with a half-guinea which he found in the 
garden, while a charity student at Kingswood 
school. f There is nothing peculiar in these 
examples — nothing but what every individual 
that has an honest and firm intention to ac- 
quire learning will constantly exhibit. With 
numbers who professedly aim at education 
there is none of this consistency, because 
they have none of the inspiration from which 
it originates. Equal desire will always pro- 
duce equal effort. 

3. Self-denial. — This is an inexhaustible 

* Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, vol. 1, p. 25. 
t Lite, vol. 1, p. 88. 



PECUNIARY RESOURCES. 131 

mine of wealth ; negative to be sure, but ever 
available, and not the less efficient for being 
of tlie negative order. In the present state 
of the world human necessities are of two 
widely different kinds, fancied and real. 
The former happily are much more numerous 
than the latter, and comprise the greater por- 
tion of those wants for the satisfaction of 
which money is demanded. Hence, although 
the real wants of nature have never varied, 
the actual cost of living has been extremely 
various at different times. Dr. Johnson esti- 
mates that a pension of ten pounds which 
Henry the Eighth bestowed upon Roger 
Ascham, was at least equivalent to ten times 
that sum a century and a half later. The 
estimate, however, is based partly upon a 
supposed difference in the nominal value of 
money. His remarks on that class of wants 
now under consideration are too important to 
be omitted. ."But the value of money has 
another variation which we are still less able 
to ascertain : the rules of custom or the differ- 
ent needs of artificial life, make that revenue 
little at one time which is great at another. 



132 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

Men are rich or poor, not only in proportion 
to what they have, but to what they want. 
In some ages, not only necessaries are cheaper, 
but fewer things are necessary. In the age 
of Ascham, most of the elegances and expen- 
ses of onr present fashion were unknown ; 
commerce had not yet distributed superfluity 
through the lower classes of the people, and 
the character of a student implied frugality, 
and required no splendor to support it. His 
pension, therefore, reckoning together the 
wants which he could supply, and the wants 
from which he was exempted, may be estima- 
ted, in my opinion, at more than a hundred 
pounds a year."* 

This train of expenses which the artificial 
habits of society have introduced, is wholly 
within the power of self-denial, and may be 
set aside by all those who have sufficient 
firmness to try the experiment. Here, then, 
is a financial expedient which annihilates the 
costliness of education, and is thus, for all 
practical purposes, equal to a very consider- 
able sum of money. Luxury has been aptly 
* Life of Ascham. 



PECUNIARY RESOURCES. 133 

styled artificial poverty,. because its demands, 
which are of our own creating, have no other 
effect than to cause a vast disproportion be- 
tween the wants and the means of most in- 
dividuals. These fictitious necessities are as 
imperative as they are boundless ; and the 
consequence is that they hold multitudes of 
human beings in the most abject slavery — a 
slavery only the more to be hated because of 
its merely imaginative character. Under 
these circumstances life becomes a scene of 
restless, abortive toil for .gratifications many 
of which are as low as they are unnecessary. 
Yet this is not all — not the worst ; since to 
gain means for such unnatural and unlimited 
indulgence, one starves, another contracts 
disease, a third becomes a knave, and all are 
made fools. But those who cannot cheer- 
fully and spiritedly repel this crushing tyr- 
anny, need not aim at self-education, for the 
votaries of science must be disenthralled. 
There are few who worship at the shrine of 
fashion that have anything left to offer upon 
the altar of learning, and the poor are never 



134 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

of this number ; hence for them to seek 
knowledge is to seek nothing else. 

4. Time.- — Time is equivalent to money, 
because our time directed to any useful em- 
ployment, will command money. So that 
the time spent in study may be reckoned as 
an investment of money for that object — 
that is, for knowledge. Every hour and 
every moment which can be subtracted from 
other pursuits, should be considered sacred 
to science. And in order to save time for 
this object, severe retrenchments should be 
made from sleep, conversation, and amuse- 
ment. This is no theorizing, it has actually 
and often been done, and the time thus spent 
has been productive of some of the best 
works in the annals of science. ~No person 
who is able to labor or to manage any kind 
of business, is so confined as to have no lei- 
sure moments, and there are few who have 
not hours in the course of the day and eve- 
ning that might be employed in reading, or 
such other studies as they should prefer. If 
these vacant seasons — these breaks in the 
ordinary routine of secular occupation, are 



PECUNIARY RESOURCES. 135 

seized on with avidity and claimed as the 
rightful property of a higher interest, they 
will be found to exert a disengaging influence 
upon other affairs. He that uses faithfully 
these little fragments of time will soon have 
as much time for study as health can admit 
or improvement require. The improvement 
of such shreds of time demands a mental, if 
not a bodily, abstraction from other concerns. 
And I need not say that retirement is as 
welcome to the mind of a student as it is 
favorable to his studies. Let time be saved 
in this manner, and the poor will find that 
money, and more than money, is saved, be- 
cause labor as well as money is the price of 
knowledge. Let no one complain of a want 
of money while time, which is worth more 
than money, is daily thrown away. 

5. Accommodations. — There are many in- 
cidental accommodations attendant upon ev- 
ery enterprise, which are unknown to the 
inexperienced. People are willing to help 
those who are determined to help themselves. 
Not that they have large sums of money to 
give, or are ready to become patrons in any 



136 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

proper sense, but they are at least willing to 
stand out of the way, and occasionally would 
not object to some slight expense by way 
of aiding intellect in its conflict with pov- 
erty. All such assistances are nothing more 
than is every day rendered as a mark of re- 
spect to activity, without reference to the 
object about which it is employed. On this 
principle, the student will sometimes obtain 
the gift of a book, or the use of a library ; 
and if at school, he may be considered some- 
what in the settlement of his bills. Another 
species of help which I shall set down under 
this head is the concurrence of circumstances. 
Not only do the very elements seem to com- 
bine to favor the self-sustained youth, but the 
entire state of things is often found unex- 
pectedly pliable. Difficulties which, in the 
distance, appear formidable, assume another 
aspect on a nearer approach. This incidental 
yielding of things to determined effort — this 
sort of accommodation which nature and the 
world bestow upon human energy, has a cer- 
tain pecuniary value, and is therefore to be 



PECUNIARY RESOURCES. 137 

recorded among the resources of such as are 
destined to high achievement. 

Should it be thought these remarks have 
been of too negative a character, let it be 
borne in mind that money is never wanted 
for its own sake. It is only for the effects 
which it can produce that money is of any 
value to us ; and if these effects can be 
reached as well by other means, all will ad- 
mit that such means are of the same value 
as money. From the nature of the case no 
great amount of money can come into the 
hands of the poor student who is directing 
his efforts mainly to intellectual acquisitions ; 
for he sacrifices the chances of wealth to the 
desire of knowledge. But if the indirect and 
incidental advantages which we have speci- 
fied, are found sufficient for his object, then 
is there no cause for discouragement to him 
on whom the burden of such resources is 
thrown, nor the least necessity for further 
details on the subject of fiscal accumulation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HINDRANCES TO SELF-EDUCATION. 

This chapter is closely connected with the 
preceding one ; that is a positive, and this a 
negative view of the same subject. Many 
of the obstacles which the solitary student 
has to meet are not peculiar to his under- 
taldng ; they belong to that class of com- 
mon difficulties which press upon all enter- 
prises, and which cannot be obviated by any 
change of method. These might be con- 
sidered in a general treatise on education, 
but they need not be discussed here ; neither 
is it necessary to give prominence to diffi- 
culties which the aspirant himself does not 
feel, and which can, at most, exert only a 
remote influence upon his destiny. 

Several years since the author had the 
privilege of hearing the late Mr. Solomon 
Southwich deliver part of a course of lee- 



HINDRANCES. 139 

tures on self-education ; and though that gen- 
tleman was a man of learning and ability, 
his lectures were wanting in adaptation. 
They were ably critical dissertations ; but 
not exactly pertinent to the subject. Our 
opinion then was, and still is, that defective 
and spurious literature, or the difficulty of 
making a good selection of books and sci- 
ences, is not the main obstacle to self-educa- 
tion. Evils of this class are too refined to be 
of much consequence. There are more pal- 
pable, and more serious hindrances which 
claim our attention, and to the consideration 
of these the following chapter is devoted. 

1. The want of time is undoubtedly one of 
the greatest difficulties to be overcome. And 
yet so little power does this circumstance ex- 
ert over a resolute mind that it is scarcely 
able to abridge or even to retard its. acqui- 
sitions. Men of the most active habits, and 
whose pursuits seemed to preclude all atten- 
tion to literature, have always found sufficient 
time both for writing and study. Some of 
them have indeed been the most voluminous 
writers of which we have any knowledge. 



14:0 YOUNG man's book. 

The writings of Bonaparte may be given 
as an instance of what is practicable under 
such circumstances. It is scarcely conceiv- 
able how his active military life allowed the 
least time for correspondence. Yet he ap- 
pears to have written more than any of his 
contemporaries.. "The correspondence of 
the Emperor," says Mr. Alison, "still pre- 
served in the archives of Paris, or in the cus- 
tody of his generals, if published entire, 
would amount to many hundred volumes. 
From the valuable fragments of it published 
in the appendixes to General Matthieu Du- 
mas, and the works of General Gourgaud 
and Baron Fain, on the campaigns of 1812, 
1813, and 1814, as well as the letters of Na- 
poleon, contained in Napier's account of the 
Peninsular war, some idea may be formed of 
the prodigious mental activity of a man, who, 
amid all the cares of empire, and all the dis- 
tractions of almost incessant warfare, con- 
trived, during the twenty years that he held 
the reins of power, to write or dictate prob- 
ably more than the united works of Lope 
De Yega, Yoltaire and Sir Walter Scott. His 



HINDRANCES. 141 

secret and confidential correspondence with 
the directory published at Paris in. 1819, 
from 1796 to 1798 only, a work of great in- 
terest and variety, amounts to seven large 
closely-printed volumes ; and his letters to 
his generals, during that time, must have 
been twice as voluminous.''* 

This is not a solitary instance even in 
modern times, for the works of General 
Washington amount to about seventy large 
manuscript volumes ; and the King of Prus- 
sia, Frederick the Great, was an extensive 
writer, and withal a poet of no inferior pre- 
tensions. Of the ancients we need only 
mention Csesar, and Polybius, and Xeno- 
phon, all of whom were eminent generals 
and equally eminent writers. These authors 
wrote as well as those who were less active, 
and as well as th.ej would, had themselves 
been less active ; or, in other words, the lim- 
ited time which they could command was no 
detriment to their labors. 

The self-educated have not unfrequently 
progressed as rapidly in their studies as those 

* History of Europe, chap. 80, note. 



142 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

who have had every facility that the schools 
can bestow ; and they have prosecuted them, 
not only as far as snch institutions could ren- 
der assistance, but frequently much farther. 
E"or is this remarkable, for learning results 
from thought, and the mind is not depend- 
ent upon any arrangement of external cir- 
cumstances for its capacity to think. The 
hands may be employed, but the intellect is 
free ; scholastic facilities may be wanting, 
but the mind can create them for itself. It 
is evident, therefore, that the most embar- 
rassing avocations offer no effectual resist- 
ance to literary enterprise ; that neither the 
dangers and dissipation of the camp, nor the 
fatigues and cares of manual labor, are in- 
compatible with an allowance of time suffi- 
cient for the highest degree of intellectual 
culture. 

2. Next to the difficulties arising from a 
want of time are those which arise from a 
want of money. Ever-crowding necessity is 
the malevolent genius of men who are obliged 
to educate themselves. Poverty excludes 
them from the ordinary means of cultivation, 



HINDRANCES. 143 

and if they ever rise it must be without such 
facilities as pecuniary ability can procure. 
He who has money can command his time, 
and whatever assistance he pleases ; but the 
poor must aim at self-education because he is 
poor. It is of no use to specify a thousand 
good works to a man who is not able to buy 
one ; nor need we tell him who is the best 
author on a given subject when he can never 
avail himself of means to make a purchase. 
Neither will it benefit him to know what sci- 
ences are most useful or what methods of 
study are most approved, unless they are 
shown to be within the reach of his financial 
resources. But there is one subject on which 
he needs instruction. He wants to know how 
to get money ; or, what is exactly equiva- 
lent, how to dispense with the use of money, 
and yet accomplish his object. This secret, 
which by the way cannot long be unknown 
to a determined mind, banishes all the seem- 
ing impossibilities that at first surround the 
enterprise, and give to pecuniary advantages 
the very subordinate character to which alone 
they are entitled. In reading the lives of 



144 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

eminent men who in early life encountered 
poverty, we wish to know the secret by which 
they overcame : — not what the force of the 
tide of their snccess was equal to, but what 
gave impetus to that tide. And if this be 
overlooked, nine tenths of the value of biog- 
raphy is lost. We may therefore well inquire 
how the self-educated accomplished their 
task. Was it by borrowing books or money ? 
or by the gratuity of some friend ? or were 
the obstacles to human enterprise for once 
removed — in short, did they find a royal road 
to • knowledge ? No, by no means. They 
looked necessity in the face and bid defiance. 
They threw themselves upon the unearthly 
resources of genius — upon the majesty of the 
human mind, and, destitute of facilities for 
learning, as David was of weapons of war 
when he engaged Goliah, they achieved a 
triumph over every difficulty. The whole 
secret seems to lie in making small assistance 
efficient for high ends — in reducing the ad- 
ventitious aids of the intellectual powers, not 
only without prejudice to the final result, but 
with positive advantage. This is indeed not 



HINDRANCES. 145 

so much to dispense with help, as to find it 
where it is seldom sought ; not so much to do 
with less assistance, as to obtain more from 
more congenial sources. Great occasions 
make great men ; and great pursuits lead to 
commensurate attainments. The history of 
individual greatness proves that men distin- 
guished for great and noble deeds have gen- 
erally laid their plans, and adopted their 
governing purpose, at the very commence- 
ment of their course of education. A case 
in point is that of Pollok, whose fame will be 
more lasting 

Than Scotia's northern battlement of hills." 

His biographer says that he was fourteen 
years in preparing the Course of Time, and 
as he died at twenty-eight, he must have 
formed the design and entered upon the 
execution of that work at the age of fourteen. 
Dr. Adam Clarke was forty years in prepar- 
ing his commentary, and as he finished it at 
sixty-three, he must have commenced at 
twenty-three — long before he attained any 
distinction as a scholar, and shortly after his 

10 



14:6 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

rejection by the sagacious master of Kings- 
wood school. Lord Bacon furnishes another 
instance still more remarkable. At the early 
age of thirteen he was entered at Cambridge, 
bnt " after two years' residence he quitted the 
university with the conviction not only that 
these seminaries of learning were stagnant, 
but that they were opposed to the advance- 
ment of knowledge."" Thus between the 
thirteenth and fifteenth years of his age he 
discovered the futility of the then existing 
systems of science and planned his own im- 
mortal work — the Novum Organum — upon 
which he labored during the greater part of 
his life, and ultimately published when he 
was Chancellor. 

Where the aim is sufficiently high, the 
practical effort which must follow always 
draws after it suitable qualifications. The 
occasion imparts the means ; the work it- 
self supplies the requisite ability. Hence 
it is not by the acquisition of money in 
some unusual manner that poverty is to be 
overcome. Eminence is prior to patronage. 
* Montagu's Life of Bacon, chap. 1. 



HINDRANCES. 147 

Wealth and conveniences are not requisite to 
eminence ; they are but effects which occa- 
sionally follow when the productions of genius 
have assumed a marketable value. The great 
whom we admire, first became great and 
subsequently rich ; they first became learned, 
and afterwards acquired what are commonly 
considered the means of learning. 

3. It would not be easy to estimate too 
highly the importance of literature, but noth- 
ing can be more injurious than the supposi- 
tion that science is only to be attained by a 
profound acquaintance with language. The 
art of writing is no more essential to knowl- 
edge than the art of painting, or than any 
mechanic art whatever. And to suppose that 
a deficiency of this kind must operate as a 
barrier to improvement, is to imagine a diffi- 
culty where none exists. For the conveyance 
and retention of knowledge, language is indis- 
pensable, but not for its acquirement. Let- 
ters and sounds are not an attribute of truth, 
they are only an arrangement by which the 
commerce of truth is facilitated. Men no 
way remarkable for literature have possessed 



148 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

more real science than the age in which they 
lived. This was apparent in Martin Luther 
whose single mind embraced more knowledge 
of divinity than the world besides ; in Galileo 
who was obliged to abjure his astronomical 
tenets to escape the Inquisition ; and in Coper- 
nicns whose cosmogony, through fear, was 
given to the world only with his expiring 
breath. Literature is an emanation of science ; 
it is essentially an effect rather than a cause 
of knowledge. We would be far from saying 
these things to those who are obliged to 
educate themselves, in order to lessen their 
esteem for literary acquisitions. Such as are 
competent to judge, cannot fail to appreciate 
advantages of this kind ; but our object is to 
remind those who cannot obtain them, that it 
is in their power to supersede their necessity, 
by taking at once higher ground. Their 
passage into the temple of science may indeed 
be forced ; but. better so than not at all. Let 
them lay hold upon knowledge ; literature 
must follow, if it cannot precede. 

4. An impression that learning can only 
be successfully prosecuted by the aid of 



HINDRANCES. 149 

teachers, lias contributed to discourage the 
enterprise of self-education. That teachers 
are useful is not to be disputed ; that they 
are necessary can never be shown. Although 
we admit the utility of such assistance, yet it 
must not be regarded as a principal advantage 
even of the schools. There are four advan- 
tages arising from school : 1. The student is 
separated from other employments. 2. He 
is made to apply himself. 3. He is confined 
to elementary studies. 4. The aid of a living 
teacher is occasionally supplied. The last is 
of course the least essential. But even allow- 
ing that a teacher is necessary, the case is not 
materially altered ; for the solitary student 
finds a teacher in his text-book, or assumes 
the office himself. Where books are not 
available to guide him, he becomes his own 
guide-; and surely the office of direction 
could not, in merely human hands, be more 
judiciously invested. Alexander and Bona- 
parte, knew quite as much of war as any who 
could have been found to instruct them. 
"What military school, or what veteran officer 
had equal knowledge ? The same is true of 



y 



150 YOUNG MAIN'S BOOK. 

Aristotle and Bacon. They had no teachers 
"because none could teach them ; or, rather, 
they taught themselves because others were 
ignorant of what they wished to know. Such 
minds are at least as competent to guide 
themselves as others can be to guide them ; 
and if teachers are not necessary — not possi- 
ble — in the high sphere in which they moved, 
let no one consider them indispensable to 
subordinate pursuits. 

5. By many, a certain amount of conve- 
niences is looked upon as a necessary condi- 
tion of scholarship. !N"ot to have the usual 
number of books, teachers, instruments, and 
so forth, is deemed a misfortune to which 
resistance is useless. This imaginary evil so 
paralyzes their strength that with the warmest 
desires for learning, they are not able to 
make a single vigorous effort. For the en- 
couragement of such, let it be observed that 
mechanical facilities add nothing to genius. 
Men wrote as well before libraries and schools 
were established, as they have done since ; 
we have not exceeded the ancients, although 
their literary advantages, according to the 



HINDRANCES. 151 

popular estimation, were immeasurably less 
than ours. The mind is not dependent for 
its acquisitions upon complicated and costly 
agencies ; it arrives at the greatest improve- 
ments by the most simple means. Dr. Frank- 
lin, one of the most successful experimental 
philosophers, may be taken as an example. 
" His discoveries were made with hardly any 
apparatus at all ; and if, at any time, he had 
been led to employ instruments of a some- 
what less ordinary description, he never 
seemed satisfied until he had, as it were, 
afterward translated the process, by resolving 
the problem with such simple machinery that 
you might say he had done it wholly unaided 
by apparatus. The experiments by which 
the identity of lightning and electricity was 
demonstrated, were made with a sheet of 
brown paper, a bit of twine, a silk thread, 
and an iron key."* This simplicity of means 
implies no defect in the execution ; the ex- 
periments of Franklin were as perfect as any 
that ever were made, notwithstanding the 
paucity and meanness of his instruments. 
* Lord Brougham: Statesmen in the time of George III. 



152 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

The advance of science under such circum- 
stances reminds us of the astonishing skill of 
Asiatic manufacturers. The finest fabrics 
of the East are woven in rude huts and 
with hand-looms of the coarsest construction. 
Silks, so fine and delicate as to have no equal 
in European manufactures, are wrought with 
this imperfect machinery, — if that may be 
called machinery, which exhibits so little of 
art, or if that may be considered imperfect 
which, in its effects, has never been equalled." 
Facts like these evince a capacity that cir- 
cumstances have no power to control, and the 
youth who hesitates to engage in literary and 
scientific pursuits merely because certain inci- 
dental helps are not at his command is as 
justly chargeable with his subsequent igno- 
rance and degradation, as if he had been 
surrounded by every possible advantage. 

* ;: Notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of their looms, 

they wall imitate exactly the newest and most delicate 

pattern from England or Fiance. The Chinese particularly 

I in the production of damask and flowered satins. 

Their crape has never yet been perfectly imitated : and they 

■ a species of washing silk, called at Canton p 
which becomes more soft as it is longer used." The Chinese, 
&c. By John Francis Davis, Esq., F. It. S., vol. 2, p. 2:J7. 



HINDRANCES. 153 

Education demands nothing but mind, and 
such an application as is practicable to all 
classes of society. 

6. Genius is often totally misunderstood, 
and the consequence is that a certain pecu- 
liarity of mind, — necessary only to eminence 
of a particular kind, — -comes to be regarded 
as essential to all intellectual efforts. If, as 
we have shown in another place, all minds 
have sufficient strength to learn the highest 
truths, then the absence of what is called 
genius can be counterbalanced by industry. 
The want of greater aptitude may retard im- 
provement, but cannot render it uncertain. 
Moreover the mind derives its ability, in 
part at least, from causes within its own con- 
trol. Objects of a high character, — pursuits 
lying beyond the common range of enter- 
prise, — always imbue the individual with 
their own greatness. And those who may 
think that nature has denied them the requi- 
site qualifications for learning, have only to 
attempt the work, to be convinced -that the 
defect is in the lowness of their own ambition, 
and not in the constitution of their faculties. 



154 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

7. Needless fears are entertained of the 
difficulty of the work ; the formality and 
stateliness of scholastic lessons lead many to 
suppose that learning at school, and learning 
elsewhere, are things very different. They 
have no idea that what they already know 
bears any resemblance to the knowledge 
pecular to snch institutions. " A mother 
tells her infant,"* says Dr. Johnson, "that 
two and two make. four, the child remembers 
the proposition, and is able to count four for 
all the purposes of life, till the course of his 
education brings him among philosophers, 
who fright him from his former knowledge 
by telling him that four is a certain aggre- 
gate of units." Most of the knowledge re- 
served for maturer years will be found 
equally practical, if not precisely identical 
with the lessons of the nursery. Youth have 
only to employ the same faculties that have 
enabled them to learn what they now know, 
in order to learn all that remains to be known. 
There is much less mystery and difficulty in 
science than superficial observers are inclined 
to believe, or than interested empirics are 



HINDRANCES. 155 

willing to confess. "The very depth of hu- 
man knowledge, and the very height and 
perfection of art, are, in truth, nothing more 
than the revealing and applying of a few 
of the laws and principles of nature ; and 
though we often flatter ourselves that there 
is something profound in what we know, and 
mighty in what we do, it is still in nature ; 
and what we call inventions, even clever 
ones, are only the applications of discoveries ; 
and of discoveries which lie as much in the 
way of one man as another, if both are 
equally diligent in search of them."* Every 
truth in science and every attainment in lit- 
erature is as much within the reach of com- 
mon minds as anything that they have pre- 
viously learned. Facts are level to all who 
will take pains to observe the evidence on 
which they rest, and literary acquisitions are 
not less available to all than other practical 
attainments. 

8. All have admitted the inestimable value 
of true science to its possessor, and it is only 
in moments of peculiar stupidity that we ever 
* Mudie : Pop. Guide, p. 64. 



156 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

indulge the thought of remaining ignorant. 
But it is one thing to know that education 
is important, and another to know in what it 
consists. Things seen at a distance often 
affect us more than those near, at hand ; we 
are too much ashamed of illiteracy to per- 
ceive its true character, and our ignorance 
appears so horrid that we nee from it as from 
a spectre. Let this false delicacy give place 
to a more philosophic feeling, assured not 
only that every deserving trait will nourish 
the better for intelligent observation, but 
that the inquisitions of science are always 
and essentially beneficent. Among the terms 
which we use, none has been more frequently 
perverted than learning, or education. Some- 
men who have felt at least all their conse- 
quence in the republic of letters, call those 
unlearned who make no pretensions to Latin 
and Greek, and who have never studied at a 
classical institution. Now, we might as well 
assert that no man is a mechanic who has 
not served an apprenticeship at watch-mak- 
ing, or who did not learn his trade in Lon- 
don. Greek and Latin contain but few of 



HINDRANCES. 157 

the wonders of the universe, and colleges 
and high schools are but a small part of the 
world. The great value of these ancient 
languages may safely be admitted, without in 
any degree justifying their exclusive claims. 
Education implies nothing but knowledge 
gained by mental exercise, and an intelligent 
mind will very readily perceive that the kind 
of study, can only vary the value without 
changing the nature of the acquisition. None 
need, therefore, refrain from study on the 
supposition that education results from cer- 
tain branches of knowledge, or from particu- 
lar places of instruction, and from them only ; 
it is an acquirement common to every place 
and to every truth. A man cannot be a 
linguist unless he has studied language to 
some extent, and so of every other branch of 
knowledge. But it does not follow that one 
is not a proficient in any science because he 
has not an acquaintance with some that are 
understood by others. The same man is 
rarely eminent in more than one science, and 
there is not the strict necessity for a partial 
knowledge of others which some have sup- 



158 young man's book. 

posed. The names of Brindley and Ferguson 
are proofs to what extent engineering and 
astronomy may be carried without a knowl- 
edge of mathematics ; and we might select 
similar examples from other pursuits, all 
tending to show that the mind as well as the 
body can dispense with ordinary facilities if 
it choose. Hence the absurdity of restricting 
the word learning to one or a few depart- 
ments of knowledge, while the universe is 
full of wonders neither less instructive nor 
less easy of access. 

9. The extent of education has been as lit- 
tle known as its nature. And a conviction 
of its unmanageable greatness has been a 
fruitful source of discouragement to the in- 
experienced. The term education does not 
present a subject with any naturally denned 
proportions, its import being fixed by con- 
ventional usage. What we now call by that 
ennobling name was once either unknown or 
disregarded. "War and devotion supplied the 
themes for the poet and the sage, while mem- 
ory lent her aid in transmitting their produc- 
tions to future generations. The natural 



HINDRANCES. 159 

sciences were not then unfolded ; there were 
no classical authors and no dead lansmaffes : 
each spoke as his spirit moved him. Yet in 
those unfriendly clays there were learned 
men as well as now — men whose superiors 
never lived. This proves only that learning 
is not confined to one set of ideas ; to one nor 
yet to many languages ; nor to the modes of 
instruction which are most approved. Be- 
fore the revival of letters in England, he 
who could merely read was such a prodigy 
that civil immunities were conferred upon 
him ; hence that strange statue, " the Benefit 
of Clergy," which is no other than a release 
from punishment after conviction, in consid- 
eration of literary merit. But now it is at- 
tempted to withhold the very name of scholar 
from all who have not— besides other impor- 
tant acquisitions — conned the obsolete dia- 
lects of Greece and Borne. Thus it appears 
that in one age those limited acquirements 
to be had at a common school are deemed 
wonderful, while in another age, one must 
travel through the whole encyclopedia, and 
master all the forgotten languages of the 



160 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

earth, to be considered a scholar. Extremes 
destroy each other. The capricious use of a 
word shows that it either has no settled 
meaning, or is unjustly applied. According 
to present usage, the ancients must all be 
set down as unlearned, for they were igno- 
rant of much that is embraced in a modern 
education, and those of the present day who 
arrogate to themselves this distinction — who 
claim to be exclusively the educated — will 
probably have to yield it in favor of a subse- 
quent generation. Some fortunate revolution 
in science may give posterity to look down 
from an eminence upon the present imperfect 
state of knowledge. Then the literati of our 
dav — if their memories and works shall find 
their way thus far into the distant and un- 
certain future — will be as eligible to the 
distinguishing epithets, illiterate and unedu- 
cated, as Shakspeare and Bunyan now are. 
Such absurdities sufficiently attest the indefi- 
nite views which have prevailed in reference 
to education. . The subject itself not being 
settled, the terms used to designate it are 
necessarily vague. 



HINDRANCES. 161 

10. Another hindrance exists in the too 
prevalent opinion that nothing but strictly 
literary and scientific pursuits have any ten- 
dency to inform the understanding. A vast 
amount of real science lies concealed in all 
the active employments of life. Men who 
have been sufficiently active and observing, 
although ignorant of books and letters, have 
not unfrequently, in spite of this disadvan- 
tage, attained to the highest eminence of 
knowledge. " Charlemagne was as illustri- 
ous in the cabinet as in the field ; and, though 
he could not write his own name, was the 
patron of men of letters, the restorer of learn- 
ing, and a wise legislator."* But the most 
ordinary avocations are not divested of this 
instructive influence ; even suffering, as well 
as toil, has the same effect. This view of the 
subject is very happily expressed by Dr. 
Ch aiming : "I have faith in labor, and I 
see the goodness of God in placing us in a 
Id where labor alone can keep us alive. 
I would not change, if I could, our subjection 
to physical laws, our exposure to hunger and 

* Universal Biographical Dictionary. 
11 



162 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

cold, and the necessity of constant conflict 
with the world. I would not, if I could, so 
temper the elements, that they should infuse 
into us only grateful sensations, that they 
should make vegetation so exuberant as to 
anticipate every want ; and the minerals so 
ductile as to offer no resistance to our strength 
and skill. Such a world would make a con- 
temptible race. Man owes his growth, his 
energy, chiefly to the striving ' of the will, 
that conflict with difficulty which we call 
effect. Easy, pleasant work does not give 
men a consciousness of their powers, does 
not train them to endurance, to persever- 
ance, to steady force of will ; that force 
without which all other acquisitions avail 
nothing. Manual labor is a school in which 
men are placed to get energy of purpose and 
character, a vastly more important endow- 
ment than all the learning of all the schools. 
They are placed, indeed, under hard masters, 
physical sufferings, and wants, the power of 
fearful elements, and the vicissitudes of all 
human things ; but these stern teachers do 
a work which no compassionate, indulgent 



HINDRANCES. 163 

friend could do for us, and true wisdom will 
bless Providence for their sharp ministry. 
I have great faith in hard work. The mate- 
rial world does much for the mind by its 
beauty and order; but it does much more 
for our minds by the pains it inflicts, by its 
obstinate resistance which nothing but pa- 
tient toil can overcome ; by its vast forces 
which nothing but unremitted skill and effort 
can turn to our use ; by its perils which de- 
mand continual vigilance, and by its tenden- 
cies to decay. I believe that difficulties are 
more important to the human mind than 
what we call assistances. Work we all must, 
if we mean to bring out and perfect human 
nature." 

11. But still more erroneously, manual la- 
bor is often thought to be incompatible with 
literary pursuits. Yet, so far is this from 
being the case, that it is highly probable 
such labor — independent of the knowledge 
which it supplies — is a help, rather than a 
hindrance, to literary acquirements. It is 
almost the only condition on which we can 
have " a sound mind in a sound body ;" and 



164: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

though it leaves less time for scientific studies 
than is usually deemed necessary for their 
successful prosecution, facts compel us to 
acknowledge that it leaves enough. Some 
have supposed that labor blunts the faculties 
and deprives the mind of much of its acute- 
ness. There is no evidence, however, that 
such an effect is ever produced ; but there is 
much evidence to the contrary. Active 
habits induced by physical toil are as prop- 
erly habits of the mind, as those which arise 
from speculation ; and these habits once 
formed, are easily applicable to purely intel- 
lectual employments. It is not because other 
pursuits are injurious to literature that most 
who are devoted to them fail of education ; 
the reason is, that such pursuits become ex- 
clusive — they are suffered to engross all the 
time and all the effort to the total neglect of 
literary studies. People are under no ne- 
cessity of yielding to business in this man- 
ner ; and it cam only be through ignorance 
of all just rules of management, or a pre- 
dominant desire of wealth, to which every- 
thing else is sacrificed, that they thus allow 



HINDRANCES. 165 

themselves to be absorbed in such affairs. 
Labor neither mints us for study, nor monop- 
olizes the means that should facilitate it. 
And the laboring man may congratulate 
himself upon the possession of some advan- 
tages which never, in so high a degree, fall 
to the lot of others. His abundant exercise, 
his general and rational muscular exertion, 
enables the mind to reach its utmost capacity, 
and gives it the power of prolonged endur- 
ance at this extreme point of effort. We 
therefore conclude that a life of labor pre- 
cludes no one, unless through his own un- 
constrained choice, from the highest attain- 
ments in literature and science. 

12. Some have failed solely from a want 
of perseverance. This may have been occa- 
sioned, it is true, by the ill success of an in- 
judicious method, but it more commonly pro- 
ceeds from fickleness of character. An 
object may be pursued forever by wrong 
means without being obtained ; yet there are 
few who so absolutely mistake their way. 
The most prefer to abandon the enterprise 
after prosecuting it awhile ; they are impa- 



166 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

tient and cannot wait to finish what they have 
begun ; progress is too slow and the possi- 
bility of final success too uncertain to stimu- 
late exertion. How utterly at variance with 
all practical philosophy such a vacillating 
course must be, is obvious to the most super- 
ficial observer. Not only self-education, but 
everything else, is equally beyond the sphere 
of these inconstant efforts. Knowledge can 
be had only as other things are had — that is, 
by unremitted and self-sacrificing endeavors. 
On the general subject now under considera- 
tion, I shall do the reader a favor by intro- 
ducing the following remarks from a writer 
to whom I have before referred. " Many, 
when circumstances have turned their atten- 
tion to self-improvement, and while the glow- 
ing picture is before them, often make excel- 
lent and sometimes prodigious resolutions. 
But because they do not at once, as by a 
leap, become perfect, they are soon ready to 
give up the effort in despair. For such, for 
all, it were well to remember, that self-edu- 
cation is a matter of slow progress, of pa- 
tient and persevering effort, and that in little 



HINDRANCES. 167 

tilings, from day to day and from hour to 
hour. It is the fixed law of the universe, 
that little things are ever the elements — the 
parts of the great. The grass does not spring 
up full grown. It rises by an increase so 
noiseless and gentle, as not to disturb an an- 
gel's ear, and not to be seen by an angel's 
eye. The rain does not fall in masses, but in 
drops, or even in the breath-like moisture of 
the fine mist, as if the world were one vast 
condenser, and God had breathed upon it. 
The planets do not leap from end to end of 
their orbits ; but in their ever onward pro- 
gress, inch by inch, and line by line it is that 
they circle the heavens. And so with self- 
improvement. It is not a thing of fits and 
impulses, and explosions, but of constant 
watchfulness, and patient and unwearied ef- 
fort, and of gradual and ceaseless advance- 
ment. Like the wealth of the miser, it must 
be heaped up piece by piece ; and then, at 
length, like the wealth of the miser it may 
also be without limit. Like the coral reefs 
of the ocean it must grow by small but con- 
stant additions ; and then it will finally be 



168 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

like those reefs, admirable in all its parts, 
and rivalling the very mountains in size."* 

Perseverance is necessary to respect. And 
if efforts at self-education prove unsuccess- 
ful, it is because they are contemptible- 
Weak and hesitating, precarious and incon- 
stant, without judgment and without deter- 
mination, to what but reproach are they en- 
titled \ Such persons, however, can hardly 
be said to fail in their attempts, as the fail- 
ure lies rather in their not attempting the 
work at all. Their works are only a burlesque 
upon industry. 

13. The absence of voluntary engagements 
is an obstacle to the success of this enter- 
prise. One of the principal advantages of a 
school is the obligation which it imposes upon 
the learner to acquire a certain amount of 
knowledge in a given time. This obligation 
the student assumes when he enters such an 
institution, and so long as he subjects him- 
self to an arrangement of this kind, there is 
no chance for negligence ; others have the 
supervision of him, and are paid for guard- 

* Rev. Tryon Edwards : Biblical Repository, Jan., 1841. 



HINDEANCES. 169 

ing him against irregularity. But self-edu- 
cation denies us this precaution. It places 
the student under no special oversight, it ex- 
acts of him the performance of no particular 
task. It leaves him to engage in literature 
as he is afterward to engage in other enter- 
prises — guided by his own judgment, and 
determined by his own will. Yet it must 
not be forgotten that in exempting us from 
the authority and direction of others, it does 
by no means exempt us from the authority 
and direction of ourselves. The self-edu- 
cated man is entrusted by Providence with 
the control of himself, and if his conduct is 
not characterized by just and enlightened 
discipline, it proves him either incompetent 
or reckless. He may have as good direction 
as others ; rules and regulations are not im- 
possible to him, but they must emanate from 
himself. It is desirable, therefore, that youth 
should early become acquainted with this 
peculiarity, that they may assume, if neces- 
sary, a responsibility, which society has made 
no arrangements to transfer to others. Even 
a child, if it knows that it is left unprovided 



170 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

for, will see the necessity of making some 
choice ; and almost airy choice would be pref- 
erable to allowing its juvenile years to pass 
away without an intelligent purpose. Self- 
education, although destitute of those com- 
pulsory measures furnished by the schools, is 
only on a level with all the undertakings of 
adult life. And persons who have passed 
the period of minority have no more need of 
such coercive aids to insure attention to lit- 
erature or science, than they have to insure 
attention to commerce or agriculture. Occa- 
sionally they may find the pressure of volun- 
tary engagements of service in quickening 
the mind to renewed exertion ; but its ordi- 
nary and principal support must consist of a 
spirit of literary enterprise — a love of study 
that chooses to work even where there is no 
compulsion, and in spite of every difficulty. 
This incidental assistance is thus alluded to 
in a passage of Sir Walter Scott's diary, 
c; Feb. 15, (1S26.) Yesterday I did not write 
a line of Woodstock. Partly, I was a little 
out of spirits, though that would not have 
hindered. Partly, I wanted to wait for some 



HINDRANCES. 171 

new ideas — a sort of collecting of straw to 
make "bricks of. Partly, I was a little too far 
beyond the press. I cannot pull well in long 
traces, when the draught is too far behind 
me. I love to have the press thumping, clat- 
tering, and banging in my rear ; it creates 
the necessity which always makes me work 
best."* However grateful to Sir Walter's 
ambition, such a constraint may have been, 
no one can suppose that it produced his de- 
votion to literature. Other motives would 
have kept his pen employed had this been 
wanting ; but he was too much engaged in 
his work not to be thankful for every circum- 
stance which seemed to enforce its accom- 
plishment. In the instance now given, the 
obligation was merely a consequence of pre- 
vious activity — a veteran writer had created 
demands upon his genius which he could not 
conveniently disregard. And as this is the 
natural order in which such obligations arise 
to all but minors, the self-taught student will 
find them evolving in sufficient abundance 
from his own energies. Study draws after it 
* Lockliart's Life of Scott, vol. 6, p. 176. 



172 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

obligations to study, and lie that learns most 
is most committed to learning. 

14. An erroneous impression prevails in 
reference to the art of writing. It is thought 
that writing must be a very difficult and 
complicated process, and therefore not attain- 
able without the aid of scholastic facilities. 
Many who would cheerfully attempt it upon 
the supposition that it was not more difficult 
than other mechanic arts, are now deterred 
by a dread of its impossibility. People who 
suffer such views to influence them, must be 
ignorant of the history of literature. The 
most renowned writers have rarely done more 
than simply trace upon paper the imagery 
of their own minds. In doing this they 
followed no rule, no art, no system. They 
merely took such words as they were accus- 
tomed to speak, and such as most exactly ex- 
pressed their thoughts, and placed them upon 
paper just as their thoughts occurred. Their 
writing was only an indication of certain 
conceptions of the mind ; and whatever diffi- 
culty may have attached to the process, it 
arose not from a want of skill in adapting 



HINDRANCES. 173 

words to ideas, but in adapting ideas to tilings. 
It was in thinking, not in the transference of 
thought to legible signs, that the greatness of 
their minds became evident. Our thoughts in- 
vest themselves in words, and in right words, 
spontaneously when the mind is properly 
inspired. If style is defective, it is because 
the thought is defective ; for words are noth- 
ing, and can mean nothing, but as thought 
gives them existence and gives them meaning. 
But notwithstanding thought is the soul and 
substance of writing, eminent authors fre- 
quently write without premeditation, and 
some of their happiest productions have origi- 
nated in this manner. Another extract from 
the diary of the author last quoted will fur- 
nish us an illustration here. 

" February 12, (1826.) Having ended the 
second volume of Woodstock last night, I 
have to begin the third this morning. Jsow 
I have not the slightest idea how the srory is 
to be wound up to a catastrophe. lam just 
in the same case as I used to be when I lost 
myself in former clays in some country to 
which I was a stranger. I always pushed for 



174 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

tlie pleasantest route, and either found or 
made it the nearest. It is the same in writing. 
I never could lay down a plan — or, having 
laid it down, I never could adhere to it ; 
the action of composition always extended 
some passages, and abridged or omitted others ; 
and persons were rendered important or in- 
significant, not according to their agency in 
the original conception of the piece, but ac- 
cording to the success, or otherwise, with 
which I was able to bring them out. I only 
tried to make that which I was actually writ- 
ing diverting and interesting, leaving the rest 
to fate. I have been often amused with the 
critics distinguishing some passages as par- 
ticularly labored, when the pen passed over 
the whole as fast as it could move, and the 
eye never again saw them except in proof."" 
Nor is this method of writing confined to 
works^>f imagination. The numbers of the 
Rambler — a work which for elegance of dic- 
tion and profoundness of thought, is not sur- 
passed by anything in the English language — • 
were composed in the same manner. "Pos- 
* Locldiart's Life of Scott, vol. 6, p. 172. 



HINDRANCES. 175 

terity," says Mr. Boswell, " will be astonished, 
when they are told, upon the authority of 
Johnson himself, that many of these dis- 
courses, which we should suppose had been 
labored with all the slow attention of literary 
leisure, were written in haste as the moment 
pressed, without even being read over by him 
before they were printed."* "He told us," 
continues the author, "almost all his Ramblers 
were written just as they were wanted for the 
press ; that he sent a certain portion of the 
copy of an essay, and wrote the remainder, 
while the former part of it was printing. 
When it was wanted, and he had fairly sat 
down to it, he was sure it would be done."f 
Rasselas, another of Johnson's most finished 
works, was written with equal rapidity. " He 
told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he composed 
it in the evenings of one week, sent it to the 
press as it was written, and had never since 
read it over." J Its critical merits as a literary 
work are thus characterized by Sir John Haw- 
kins, " Rasselas is a specimen of our language 

* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 139. 

f Ibid, vol. 3. J Ibid, vol. 1, p. 246. 



176 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

\ 

scarcely to be paralleled ; it is written in 
a style refined to a degree of immaculate 
purity."* 

Examples of this kind prove that the mind 
can perform its highest tasks with very little 
of what is commonly thought to be a necessary 
preparation. Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic 
are all evolved in every correct thought. 
They are all inherent in truth, are attributes 
of it, and breathed forth with the utterance 
of every just conception. Intense and correct 
thinking, therefore, carries with it the essen- 
tials of good writing, and the only real hin- 
drance to authorship is the want of such ideas 
as deserve to be recorded. 

15. The idea that a great amount of knowl- 
edge is a necessary prerequisite to scientific 
pursuits, or to the efficient exercise of the 
mind, retards improvement by impairing the 
confidence which every man should have in 
his own powers of observation. It is only on 
subjects to which knowledge relates that it 
rds us any assistance ; the study of mathe- 

* Quoted by Arthur Murphy in his Life of Johnson, 
p. 206. 



HINDRANCES. 177 

matics enables us to judge better of mathe- 
matical truths, but not of other truths. On 
subjects of which all are equally ignorant, all 
are equally competent judges. But every 
mind is endowed with a capacity of thinking, 
and the elements of truth are constantly 
present to every mind ; so that nothing but 
application is necessary to place all on a 
level in actual attainments. " The rudest 
peasant may be said to have in his mind, all, 
or nearly all, those primary notions, of which 
the sublimest demonstrations of the relations 
of number and quantity are the mere develop- 
ment. He would be astonished, indeed, if he 
could be made to understand, that on notions, 
which appear to him of so very trifling im- 
port, have been founded some of the proudest 
monuments of the intellectual achievements 
of man, and that, among the names, to which 
his country and the world look with highest 
veneration, are the names of those whose life 
has been occupied in little more than in 
tracing all the forms of which those few con- 
ceptions, which exist in his mind as much as 

12 



178 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

in theirs, are susceptible."* To trace out 
these various relations, is the appropriate 
business of the mind. For this purpose, the 
fundamental idea was given bj nature, and 
all who are thus favored with the first original 
conception have the whole immensity of truth 
at their command. As he who takes one step 
has only to repeat the effort, in the right 
direction, to accomplish the longest journey, 
so he who learns one truth, has only to repeat 
the intellectual effort to acquire every possi- 
ble science. The work is that of discoverinp; 
single, not aggregated truths ; and the diffi- 
culties which embarrass us when science is 
viewed as a whole, vanish altogether when it 
is surveyed by items. Reason is a power that 
0£>erates upon the facts which are before it, 
and which requires no previous stock of 
knowledge to make its operations perfect. 
It is an endowment that performs its functions 
with only the knowledge derived from its 
own experience, and even where this knowl- 
edge is wanting it is still competent to act. 
Language, so often regarded as essential to 
* Brown : Pliilos., vol. 1, p. 490. Lect. 48. 



HINDRANCES. 179 

its exercise, is a very contingent advantage — ■ 
a mere incident to ratiocination, — as may be 
seen in the success which, always attends the 
first use of this' facnlty. " The infant, long 
before he can be supposed to have acquired 
any knowledge of terms, forms his little 
reasonings on the subjects, on which it is 
important for him to reason, as accurately 
probably as afterwards ; but, at least, with 
all the accuracy which is necessary for pre- 
serving his existence, and gratifying his few 
feeble desires. He has, indeed, even then, 
gone through processes, which are admitted 
to involve the finest reasoning, by those very 
philosophers who deny him to be capable of 
reasoning at all. He has already calculated 
distances, long before he knew the use of a 
single word expressive of distance, and ac- 
commodated his induction to those general 
laws of matter, of which he knows nothing 
but the simple facts, and his expectation, 
that what has afforded him either pain or 
pleasure, will continue to afford pain or pleas- 
ure. What language does the infant require 
to prevent him from putting his finger twice 



180 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

in the flame of that candle which has burned 
him once ? or to persuade him to stretch his 
hand in exact conformity with the laws of 
optics, to that very point at which some bright 
trinket is glittering on his delighted eyes? 
To suppose that we cannot reason without 
language, seems to me, indeed, almost to in- 
volve the same inconsistency, as to say, that 
man is incapable of moving his limbs, till he 
have previously walked a niile."* There 
can be no good reason, then, why the most 
illiterate and unlearned person should not 
commence a course of observation with the 
hope of distinguished usefulness. Such an 
individual has all the faculties and all the 
knowledge necessary to the discovery of truth. 
As for those mechanical facilities which the 
learned possess, and which in certain depart- 
ments of science give them such decided 
superiority, they are mere emanations of 
mind — mere effects flowing from causes al- 
ready under the control of the most ignorant. 
16. Besides the imaginary difficulties now 
mentioned, there is another which arises from 

* Brown: Pliilos., vol. 1, p. 482. 



HINDRANCES. 181 

the mistaken notion that improvement is no 
longer possible ; that the career of invention 
and discovery is closed, and that nothing 
new remains to the ambition of the student. 

The effect of snch a sentiment on the gene- 
ral progress of science, Bacon has repeatedly 
noticed. " By far the greatest obstacle to 
the advancement of the sciences and the 
undertaking of any new attempt or depart- 
ment is to be found in men's despair and the 
idea of impossibility. For men of a prudent 
and exact turn of thought are altogether dif- 
fident in matters of this nature, considering 
the obscurity of nature, and the shortness of 
life, the deception of the senses, and weak- 
ness of the judgment. They think, therefore, 
that in the revolution of ages and of the 
world, there are certain floods and ebbs of 
the sciences, and that they grow and flourish 
at one time, and wither and fall at another ; 
that when they have attained a certain de- 
gree and condition, they can proceed no fur- 
ther."* Self-education is, from the first, an 
enterprise of discovery. Its hopes and in- 
* Nov. Org., b. 1, aph. 92. 



182 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

citements must therefore be such as influence 
those who, having attained the utmost goal 
of established science, are about to advance 
to something beyond. There must be a full 
conviction that all has not been done which 
can be done. For if the solitary student is 
to be confined to stereotyped lessons under 
an impression that others have so much the 
advantage of him as to exclude competition 
on the field of discovery ; or, in other words, 
if he imagines nothing valuable can be ef-' 
fected by such means as are at his command, 
we may rest assured that his efforts will be 
abortive. It is not under such auspices that 
the human mind distinguishes itself. Ideas 
of inferiority, and of inferior advantage, re- 
quire to be forgotten in the ardor of pursuit. 
The discoveries which have hitherto been 
made, show that the power to unlock the 
mysteries of nature and to benefit the world, 
is not exclusively confided to scholars of any 
particular grade or class. All ranks of soci- 
ety and all degrees of cultivation have parti- 
cipated in these achievements. And there is 
still a chance for all, and an equal chance. 



niNDEANCES. 183 

No student should deem his opportunities 
unfavorable, or his sphere too contracted to 
allow • of eminence. However narrow the 
field of his observation, it brings him into 
living contact with exhaustless wonders— it 
gives him a panoramic view of the world, 
and opens to him all the sources of knowl- 
edge. 

17. Self-education is often neglected from 
the supposition that when most successful it 
falls considerably below what can be ob- 
tained at literary institutions. The idea that 
such attainments are never quite so perfect 
as those of the schools, diminishes their value 
in the estimation of the student, and leaves 
him without the necessary motives to profi- 
ciency. People do not willingly consent to 
what is even remotely degrading. Until 
right views of self-education prevail, it will 
continue to be pursued with languor. While 
it is looked upon as the least of two evils — as 
only preferable to ignorance, and not at all 
equal to the education of the schools — it is 
folly to expect anything like a thorough ap- 
plication. "We require to be persuaded of 



184: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

its value before making sacrifices to obtain 
it. But the idea is a fallacy. No such im- 
perfection exists ; and therefore, none should 
be suffered to influence the mind. The very 
sciences which our schools disseminate are 
the effect of self-education. We have shown 
that no science has been, or can be, invented 
by the aid of teachers. The highest efforts 
of the mind are exclusively under its own 
direction. Hence so far is this method from 
being imperfect, that it is the only one by 
which real and original greatness can be 
attained. 

18. Through a disrelish for the objects of 
human enterprise, or from the too great in- 
fluence of other and unfavorable pursuits, 
the very desire of learning is frequently in- 
termitted. In this state of mind, mental 
indolence becomes habitual, and ambition, 
which prompts to eminence, decays as the 
love of quiet increases, until at last all taste 
for study is lost, and knowledge itself seems 
to be valueless. Such have no purpose, no 
wish to learn ; but this is not the worst. 
Their irresolution and indifference are too 



HINDRANCES. 185 

apt to ripen into deliberate, unmingled hatred 
of science. They feel the corrodings of con- 
science, and the consciousness of inferiority 
which always supervene upon the neglect of 
known duty. Tormented in this manner, it 
is no wonder that they should steep their 
minds in forgetfulness, or vent them in re- 
proaches against learning. A little reflection 
will dissipate these stagnant vapors of the 
brain, and recover the mind from a state no 
less inimical to improvement than would be 
the destruction of the intellectual faculties. 

19. An evil not altogether different from 
the preceding, is that of waiting for more 1 
favorable circumstances. That is an aban- 
donment without alleged reasons ; this for 
reasons alleged, but insufficient. A bare 
postponement for a limited time would not 
of itself be fatal, but when taken in connec- 
tion with the fact, that no change for the 
better is likely to occur at any future period, 
delay becomes equivalent to an entire rejec- 
tion of the enterprise. He who will not be- 
gin with such means as he has, will probably 
never begin at all. It is necessary therefore 



186 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

to commence the work at once, with or with- 
out facilities, as the case may be. Books are 
a desideratum not always easily supplied ; 
especially the more important and approved 
text-books. But then these are not the only 
works that will answer. Almost any book 
of correct moral principles is a great acqui- 
sition. Should it be a dictionary or a trea- 
tise on metaphysics, it is not the less valuable, 
— such books are practical grammarians and 
expositors of words. In reading them the 
mind becomes familiar with a diction and 
definitions suited to the highest themes. Dr. 
"Watts enumerates five ways of gaining knowl- 
edge ; namely, reading, conversation, medi- 
tation, observation, and lectures. ISTow if 
one, for good reasons, cannot read, he still 
has left four other ways of improvement, and 
these, if industriously employed, will lead to 
distinction. Perhaps the latter modes have 
one advantage over reading, and that is, we 
use them with more reliance upon our own 
understandings. 

20. Perhaps we may ascribe the failure of 
some to a neglect of natural aptitude. They 



HINDRANCES. 187 

aimed to acquire what to them was imprac- 
ticable. Men of the greatest genius have 
often been unable to learn particular sciences 
and arts. There are few universal geniuses ; 
perhaps none. Of this peculiar inability we 
have an instance in the case of James Fer- 
guson, an eminent astronomer and mechani- 
cian, and author of several popular works on 
those subjects. "I remember distinctly," 
says Dugald Stewart, " to have heard him 
say, that he had more than once attempted 
to study the elements of Euclid ; but found 
himself quite unable to enter into that spe- 
cies of reasoning. The second proposition 
of the first book, he mentioned particularly 
as one of his stumbling-blocks at the very 
outset ; the circuitous process by which Eu- 
clid sets about an operation which never 
could puzzle, for a single moment, any man 
who had seen a pair of compasses, appearing 
to him altogether capricious and ludicrous. 
He added, at the same time, that as there 
were various geometrical theorems of which 
he had daily occasion to make use, he had 
satisfied himself of their truth, either by 



188 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

means of his compasses and scale, or by 
some mechanical contrivances of his own 
invention.'"* Sir "Walter Scott remarks of 
himself a similar defect in regard to perspec- 
tive and music. " Even the humble ambition 
which I long cherished of making sketches 
of those places w T hich interested me, from a de- 
fect of eye or of hand, was totally ineffectual. 
After long study and many efforts, I was un- 
able to apply the elements of perspective or 
of shade to the scene before me, and was 
obliged to relinquish in despair an art which 
I was most anxious to practice." "With 
music it was even worse than with painting. 
My mother was anxious we should at least 
learn Psalmody ; but the incurable defects 
of my voice and ear soon drove my teacher 
to despair."! Dr. Adam Clarke says, " There 
wa.s one branch of knowledge in which lie 
could never make any progress, viz. arith- 
metic."^: The celebrated Richard Baxter 
was also unable to make any proficiency in 
mathematics. It is not necessary to add that 

* Elem. Philos.j vol. 2, p. 140, note. 

t Life, vol. 1, pp. 39, 40. $ Life, vol. 1, p. 10. 



HINDRANCES. 189 

such sciences as seem thus to elude the grasp 
of our acuities should be omitted, for they 
cannot be acquired. The important point is 
to follow the natural inclination of the mind 
in the selection of studies ; some knowledge 
may, indeed, be gained of those which are 
repugnant to our constitution, but it is only 
while we conform to our own peculiarities 
that we can hope for much proficiency. 
Among distinguished writers there is a great 
diversity of talent. One excels in criticism, 
another in argument, and another in style. 
Some prefer poetry, others history, and oth- 
ers metaphysics. But every man rises to 
excellence in his congenial pursuit ; and in 
that alone. 

21". Miscellaneous efforts belong to the class 
of hindrances now under consideration. The 
mind, not sufficiently intent upon high attain- 
ments, allows itself to rest satisfied with mere 
fragments of learning — with scraps of infor- 
mation, which though ultimately useful when 
blended into a new system by their possessor, 
can never by themselves be of much service. 
They are materials out of which systems may 



190 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

be wrought, and a diligent mind will repair 
all deficiencies by elaborating science from 
such disjunctive hints. But miscellaneous 
and fragmentary knowledge, if suffered to 
remain in this condition, is almost entirely 
useless ; because, having neither order nor 
connection, it cannot be applied to practical 
purposes. Education demands science, and 
this demand can only be met by original in- 
vention, or by an appropriation of the labors 
of others. Wq may pass through forms 
which others have delineated, and arrive at 
a knowledge of their conceptions, and in this 
way such science becomes our own ; or, if 
required by circumstances, the same acquisi- 
tions can be made without the intervention 
of assistance. In the latter case, the mind is 
placed on a level with its predecessors, and 
has an opportunity of rivalling them on the 
same ground. It was thus that in his own 
day, the genius of Newton was equalled by 
Leibnitz, and at a later period by Ritten- 
house. We do not object to miscellaneous 
acquisitions if they can be carried forward 
to completion ; they may serve as stepping- 



HINDRANCES. 191 

stones to high advancement. It is the lia- 
bility to rest in such acquisitions that renders 
them dangerous ; it is resting in them that 
makes them useless — makes smatterers in- 
stead of men of learning. 

22. We may trace much evil to an idea 
that small fragments of time are of no use 
in literary pursuits. "Where persons are com- 
pelled to labor, or where business of any kind 
necessarily consumes a large proportion of 
time, opportunities for study will, of course, 
be greatly reduced. But the busiest life af- 
fords some moments of leisure, and if these 
are faithfully devoted to learning, and with 
the impetus which labor gives to mental ef- 
fort, there will be no real cause for regret 
that further opportunity was wanting. In 
the comparatively brief period allotted to 
such objects, the mind by diligence traverses 
the whole circle of science, and stands at last 
on as lofty an eminence of scholarship as a 
life of the most exclusive study could have 
attained. This grand result proceeds from a 
judicious improvement of those minute por- 
tions of time which by the multitude are 



192 TOTING MAN'S BOOK. 

thrown away because they are small, and, 
for no other reason. They appear not to be 
aware that these particles, though separated 
in themselves, will be united in their effect. 
Hence, the wastage of life — those odd min- 
utes and leisure hours incident to all employ- 
ments, and devoted by the student to snatches 
from whatever author may be at hand, they 
never improve by reading. Some frivolous 
entertainment is called in to give relaxation 
to the mind when it already suffers — 'Suffers 
for want of labor. The solid and compre- 
hensive truths of science, the pleasing and 
elegant accomplishments of literature would 
be a far better cordial than public amuse- 
ment or private sauntering. A great mistake 
prevails in relation to the length of time 
which an acquaintance with science must 
necessarily require. That years are spent in 
the study of particular sciences is true, and 
that the study of years does not exhaust them 
is equally true ; but this alters not the fact, 
that a general and sufficient knowledge of 
such science may be acquired in much less 
time. Dr. Adam Smith has remarked that 



HINDRANCES. 193 

the principles of almost any trade may be 
learned in a few weeks as well as in many 
years. The practical skill requisite to me- 
chanics would not be perfect, yet the general 
principles of the art could be communicated. 
In science, a similar abridgment of time is 
practicable, without sacrificing any real ad- 
vantage. A few weeks, or even days, of de- 
termined and intelligent study, will often 
give an individual more knowledge of a sci- 
ence than whole years of listless, obsequious 
toil. Bacon, while yet in his novitiate, saw 
through all the sciences of that age. His 
penetrative glance so scanned the domain of 
existing knowledge as to leave nothing for 
his ambition in future years but improve- 
ment of science. IsTow if so short a period 
■will -suffice to decide upon the merits of an 
encyclopedia, and to project a revolution in 
science, the benefits of which must continue 
until tongues shall cease and knowledge shall 
vanish away, then, it follows that the smallest 
fraction of time has an intrinsic value in this 
pursuit, and may be productive of the high- 
est consequences. Should the irregularity 

13 



194: YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

which this interrupted mode of study will 
occasion be deemed objectionable ; should it 
altogether deprive the student of many of 
those introductory sciences by which, under 
other circumstances, his progress might be 
characterized, let it be remembered that these 
are things which cannot lessen the value of 
knowledge when gained. On the contrary, 
they may even enhance its importance by 
imparting certain qualifications rarely af- 
forded by a more tedious preliminary pro- 
cess. " It was said by Eugene of Savoy, 
that the greatest generals have commonly 
been those who have been at once raised to 
command, and introduced to the great opera- 
tions of war without being employed in the 
petty calculations and manoeuvres which em- 
ploy the time of an inferior officer. In litera- 
ture, the principle is equally sound. The 
great tactics of criticism will, in general, be 
best understood by those who have not had 
much practice in drilling syllables and par- 
ticles."* 

23. With many there is a distrust of time — 
* Macaulay's Miscellanies : (Athenian Orators.) 



HINDRANCES. 195 

they are not willing to depend upon time to 
bring their efforts to maturity. From the 
uncertainty of life, they are afraid of not 
living to reap the fruit of their labor. Or, if 
exempted from fears of this kind, they imagine 
others have so much the start of them, and 
that the world is so pre-occupied as to exclude 
all chance of success. These notions are 
equally unfounded. Life is precarious, but 
its precariousness is much more regarded by 
the young than by the old. Not that the 
aged are less convinced of human frailty, for 
the fact in this respect is far otherwise ; the 
reason of their apparent indifference is, that 
they are aware such impressions, if indulged, 
must be destructive of all enterprise. Barely 
contingent evils are either to be thrown en- 
tirely out of the account, or allowed to exert 
no other than a quickening influence upon 
necessary duties. But probably the idea that 
time will not furnish an occasion for the 
exercise of any abilities which we may ac- 
quire, is still more detrimental. Such is the 
constitution of society and such the course of 
affairs, that every individual will, sooner or 



196 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

later, find a station fitted to his capacity, be 
that capacity little or great. Learning makes 
employment for itself; it creates a demand 
which nothing else can supply. And, there- 
fore, as it regards pre-occnpancy, we may 
pronounce it impossible. Genius has power 
to change the direction of energy and modify 
the character of taste. It sees things in a 
new light, and opens upon the world new 
sources of enterprise. These considerations 
should allay impatience and remove doubt ; 
for no greater security ought to be desired 
than others have enjoyed, and no further 
assurance of success than the certainty of 
being useful. Time is essential to all our 
undertakings, and the influence which it ex- 
erts in their favor, is rarely estimated. It 
not only carries us, without any agency of 
our own, through all the grades of human 
life, but improves our efforts and ripens to 
maturity projects which otherwise must have 
remained crude and worthless. This is a 
species of advantage that should engage the 
attention of the student not less than the man 
of business ; to both it is the cherishing hand 



HINDRANCES. 197 

of Providence through which the germ re- 
ceives development. Lord Bacon has, not 
without reason, ascribed much to this source, 
that has too often been thought the product 
of talents merely. " Truth is by universal 
consent the daughter of time. It is a mark, 
therefore, of utter weakness and narrowness 
of mind to attribute infinite effects to authors, 
but to withhold its due from time, the author 
of authors and of all authority."* 

24. The last hindrance which I shall notice 
arises from a false view of literary institu- 
tions. Literature, like commerce, is equally 
adapted to all places. It depends not upon 
localities, but upon energies . Yet with multi- 
tudes the name of a college is synonymous 
with education. They imagine that a resi- 
dence there must necessarily make them 
scholars ; to them the very atmosphere of 
such places is impregnated with science. 
And shut out from such favored scenes, denied 
access to the consecrated retreats of litera- 
ture, where knowledge is supposed to be im- 
bibed without study, it is no wonder they 

* Interpretation of nature. 



198 YOUNG man's book. 

are little inclined to strenuous effort. Some 
knowledge — enough for the ordinary business 
transactions of life — they may feel compelled 
to acquire ; but an extended education is not 
to be attempted in the absence of this local 
and principal advantage. How foolish this 
ignorant conceit is, must be evident to the 
least reflection. A very short acquaintance 
with literary institutions brings them upon a 
level with all other places which afford the 
means of instruction. One building is just 
as propitious |o education as another. There 
can be no possible difference in local habita- 
tions and names, except as one may have 
books or teachers which the other has not. 
But we have already shown that books and 
teachers are not essential to mental pro- 
ficiency ; there is not, therefore, even here, 
any sovereign superiority in particular estab- 
lishments of this nature. If we wish to re- 
tain the impression that such institutions are 
fraught with unusual dignity, or have any 
uncommon power by which they exorcise 
ignorance from the human mind, we can only 
do so by carefully avoiding all intercourse 



HINDRANCES. 199 

with them, and leaving imagination to rove 
without the aid of reason. " Let him who is 
fond of indulging in dream-like existence," 
says Basil Montagu, "go to Oxford, let him 
study this magnificent spectacle, the same 
under all aspects, with its mental twilights 
tempering the glare of noontide, or mellowing 
the shadowy moonlight ; let him wander in 
her sylvan suburbs, or linger in her cloistered 
halls ; but let him not catch the din of scholars 
or teachers, or dine or sup with them, or 
speak a word to any of the privileged inhabi- 
tants ; for if he does, the spell will be broken, 
the poetry and the religion gone, and the 
place of enchantment will melt from his em- 
brace into thin air."* I will not question 
what the power of association can do ; it is 
enough to have shown that no higher principle 
is involved. 

* Life of Bacon, chap. 1. 



CHAPTER X. 

MOTIVES TO SELF-EDUCATION". 

1. Those who have been obliged to educate 
themselves, have hitherto been subject to a 
certain degree of opprobrium ; they have 
been regarded in the literary world as a sort 
of lower caste, from which might be withheld 
by those of more legitimate extraction, such 
honors and advantages as are peculiar to 
learning." I speak not now of collegiate hon- 
ors or emoluments, but of that estimate of 
character — that just appreciation of attain- 
ments, which is more regarded by every man 
of real science, than titles or money. The 
literary man, and the self-educated, not less 
than others, feels little solicitude beyond the 
desire of a fair valuation ; if merit is admit- 
ted, he cares not how capricious other allot- 
ments may be. When he has toiled with 
untiring zeal, and been so fortunate as to 



MOTIVES. 201 

produce works that fix the character of lan- 
guage and give immortality to his name, it 
is not just that he should still be called " il- 
literate."* When he has gone over the en- 
tire field of science and literature, and gained 
a position evidently in advance of most of 
his contemporaries, it is not right that his 
knowledge should be styled " multifarious 
and discursive, rather than correct and pro- 
found."! Discriminations of this kind may 
possibly be just in a given case, but not gen- 
erally ; not more so when applied to the 
self-educated, than to those educated at 
school. And yet to the one class they are 
applied with the greatest frequency ; to the 
other class rarely, if ever. This evinces a 
determination not to admit the self-taught to 
an equal standing in the republic of letters ; 
they may be naturalized as an act of favor 
or of justice, but must still be considered as 

* Mr. Macaulay applies this term to Bunyan. 

f See Araer. Bib. Repos., January, 1841, Art. 7, where 
these words are used by a writer to describe the attain- 
ments of Dr. Adam Clarke. This is the stereotype form of 
alluding to self-educated men ; it does not seem fashion- 
able to admit that they can by any possibility be thorough 
scholars. 



202 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

aliens by birth, and as wanting in some of 
the requisites of perfect scholarship. It is 
for this reason that the offices of instruction 
are monopolized by those who have received 
what is called a regular education ; it is 
deemed hazardous for others to assume such 
responsibilities, as if fitness depended on the 
place where they had studied, and not on the 
things which they had learned. For the 
same cause, in England, every minister of 
the established church must have a univer- 
sity education ; and every practitioner of 
medicine, in London, must be a graduate of 
Oxford or Cambridge, in order to enjoy the 
honors and immunities of his profession. 
Such abuses are not so frequent in this coun- 
try, but much of the same spirit which dic- 
tated the above regulation exists among us 
and manifests itself whenever an opportu- 
nity presents. A single instance will suffi- 
ciently confirm the present remark. By a 
requisition of the highest judicatory of this 
state, candidates for the bar are obliged to 
pursue their classical studies under a teacher, 



MOTIVES. 203 

or fail of admission.* These things show 
that oral instruction is considered essential 
to education, and that no one is fairly enti- 
tled to the character of a scholar whose ac- 
quirements have been made without such 
assistance. Now those who have confidence 
in the human mind, and who know such 
imputations as the foregoing to be both un- 
just and ridiculous, must feel anxious to 
relieve themselves from the withering influ- 
ence of aristocratic pride. They will natu- 
rally desire by the unquestionable character 
of their own attainments to redeem self-edu- 
cation from unmerited reproach, and to de- 
monstrate the folly of that assumed superiority 
now almost universally conceded to the grad- 
uate. Or if literature is an exception among 
human pursuits, and cannot be successfully 
prosecuted by individual enterprise and skill, 
■ — if there is still anything problematical in 
the undertaking, they must wish to solve the 
difficulty and place the truth beyond dispute. 

* " Time spent in classical study without the aid of a 
competent teacher — will not be allowed." Rules and Or- 
ders of the Supreme Court of the State of N. Y., p. 10. 



204 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

Others are to come after, the world is yet to 
have its generations of depressed and unfor- 
tunate beings, and before all these are given 
up to convictions of impossibility with the 
certainty of dying in hopeless ignorance, a 
daring and benevolent spirit will aim to know 
the utmost limits of intellectual capacity. In 
short, the self-educated desire neither to be 
borne down themselves by obloquy, nor to be 
accessary to the evils inflicted upon the poor 
by the popular error, that education can be 
had only at literary institutions. 

2. But however desirable it may be to re- 
pel the aspersions to which self-education 
has been so unjustly subjected, there is ano- 
ther motive of much sterner character — ne- 
cessity. All that we learn must be self- 
learned, because others cannot learn for us. 
It matters not what a teacher may know, as 
his pupil can only learn by exercising his 
own mind ; and if he will do this he may 
learn whether he has a teacher or not. But 
this necessity arises as well from the condi- 
tion of science as from the constitution of 
the mind. I have already observed that 



MOTIVES. 205 

what is not known cannot be taught ; the 
student who departs ever so little from his 
text-book — who aims at anything more than 
second-hand knowledge, is obliged to be his 
own instructor. No one can guide him in 
unknown regions, and he must forever be 
confined to the beaten path or assume the 
responsibility of self-direction. We surely 
ought to acquiesce in a necessity which ulti- 
mately enforces independence, and wrests 
from pupilage all those who ever attain to 
honorable distinction. Providence interposes 
to prevent the evils of mental vassalage, and 
also to remind those who are destitute of for- 
eign assistance, that they are able to help 
themselves. 

3. By directing our own education, we se- 
cure an exemption from the trammels of au- 
thority. When the mind is just commencing 
its smwey of things, and needs more knowl- 
edge than it has had time to accumulate, au- 
thoritative instructions are often necessary 
for the preservation of life or the direction 
of conduct ; but when time has afforded op- 
portunities for acquisitions of knowledge 



206 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

equal to the wants of the individual, this 
authority is no longer needed, and can no 
longer be exerted without injury to the intel- 
lectual constitution. Man was made to think 
for himself, and when he ceases to do so he 
is not the being his Creator designed ; he is 
absorbed by other minds, and loses his iden- 
tity in the world around him. Nowhere is 
such a result more to be apprehended or more 
to be dreaded than in these halls of learning, 
where youth are expected to form their char- 
acters and store their minds with hoarded 
knowledge. Here the wisest men shape their 
ideas according to a text-book, and the un- 
derstanding itself is subjected to the author- 
ity of authors. Not to submit, is contumacy ; 
to do so, is the destruction of reason. Under 
these circumstances, youth must become in- 
different to truth, or blind to error ; must 
' cease to think, or think only as they are bid- 
den. Such a state of mind may consist well 
enough with pursuits which task only the 
memory, but it will not allow the higher fac- 
ulties to be employed. 

On this subject, as much, and more, has 



MOTIVES. 207 

been said by Lord Bacon. " In the habits 
and regulations of schools, universities, and 
the like assemblies, destined for the abode 
of learned men, and the improvement of 
learning, everything is found to be opposed 
to the progress of the sciences. For the lec- 
tures and exercises are so ordered, that any- 
thing out of the common track can scarcely 
enter the thoughts and contemplations of the 
mind. If, however, one or two have perhaps 
dared to use their liberty, they can only im- 
pose the labor on themselves, without de- 
riving any advantage from the association 
of others ; and if they put up with this, they 
will find their industry and spirit of no slight 
advantage to them in making their fortune. 
For the pursuits of men in such situations 
are, as it were, chained down to the writings 
of particular authors, and if any dare to dis- 
sent from them, he is immediately attacked 
as a turbulent and revolutionary spirit."" 

And again, in the tract on the Praise of 
Knowledge, he says, with more severity : 
" In the universities of Europe at this day, 
* Nov. Org. I). 1, apb. 90. 



208 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

they learn nothing but to believe : first to 
believe that others know that which they 
know not ; and after, themselves know that 
which they know not. They are like a be- 
calmed ship ; they never move but by the 
wind of other men's breath, and have no oars 
of their own to steer withal." That these in- 
stitutions are what they were in the days of 
Bacon, and that they must ever remain sub- 
stantially what they now are, may be shown 
without difficulty. The first of these facts is 
familiar to all who have any knowledge of 
the present state of Europe. It is thus al- 
luded to by Dugald Stewart. " Unwilling as 
I am to touch on a topic so hopeless as that 
of Academical Reform, I cannot dismiss this 
subject, without remarking, as a fact, which, 
at some future period, will figure in literary 
history, that two hundred years after the date 
of Bacon's philosophical works, the anti- 
quated routine of study, originally prescribed 
in times of scholastic barbarism and of popish 
superstition, should in so many Universities, 
be still suffered to stand in the way of im- 
provements, recommended at once by the 



MOTIVES. 209 

present state of the sciences, and by the or- 
der which nature follows in developing the 
intellectual faculties."* The second asser- 
tion — that such institutions must remain as 
they now are, is but too evident both from 
the history of the past and from the nature 
of the case. Causes which have operated to 
prevent any change thus far — causes which, 
for a period of two hundred and fifty years 
of unparalleled intellectual activity, have 
kept the universities of Europe stationary, 
will certainly be able to control them for the 
time to come. But admitting a change in 
the order of studies and in the kind of studies, 
yet there can be no improvement because 
the mind is still subject to authority and can 
never by such aids enlarge the boundaries 
of knowledge. Its " entire hopes and for- 
tunes must be wrapt up in the weak brains, 
and limited souls of about half a dozen mor- 
tals," f while original sources are left unex- 
plored, and the highest powers unemployed. 
4. Setting aside the elevated attainments 
now mentioned, which can be achieved only 

* Elements Phil., vol. 2, p. 352. f Interp. Nature. 
14 



210 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

by self-education, there is with many another 
species of necessity that the most unsparing 
disposition cannot remove. Poverty has ex- 
cluded them from such advantages as are 
furnished by schools, and their only election 
is between self-education and ignorance. In 
this instance the motive has all the force of 
a divine appointment. The student feels 
that his task has been assigned him by that 
Being with whom are the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge, and that its difficulties are 
only intended as an inducement to diligence 
• — to that diligence which rightly claims su- 
pernal patronage. Something more than 
an ordinary love of independence, and some- 
thing higher than the wonted range of mental 
aspiration, may perhaps be necessary to de- 
termine in favor of this course the choice of 
one who has means at his command ; but to 
the poor, it is the destiny of nature, and he 
must either educate himself or yield all hojDes 
of improvement. He may consent to part 
with originality and never to rise above the 
subordinate character which a college can 
bestow, but it avails nothing ; for even these 



MOTIVES. 211 

acquisitions are denied to poverty on every 
other condition but that of self-directed toil. 
On one side is the cheerless oblivion of igno- 
rance ; on the other, the insurmountable 
heights of science. It is here, in the outset 
of life — of such a life — that the true dignity 
of human nature is displayed. ~No assistance 
has been proffered, and therefore none is 
needed. Under these circumstances, we are 
justified in presuming upon the highest at- 
tainments by the force of mind alone. This 
original capacity in man for dispensing with 
the ordinary means of improvement, is one 
of those conservative principles by which, 
when the cycle of error is completed, he 
starts anew in the career of science. Thus, 
as a compensation to the poor, the guarantee 
of greatness is doubled ; to the law imposed 
by the nature of science, is added deliver- 
ance from temptation to inferior achieve- 
ments. 

5. Emulation is a motive which, however 
easily corrupted, certainly and deservedly 
exercises great influence on every well-con- 
stituted mind. When greatness ceases to in- 



=«.'. 



212 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

spire emotion, the individual has sunk too 
low to be the subject of hope. A desire for 
noble deeds always arises spontaneously in 
the presence of merit. The uneducated youth 
may look upon the great masters of science and 
say, if not as Corregio, when he first saw the 
paintings of Raphael, " I too am a painter" 
— yet, as one conscious of possessing a kin- 
dred nature, " I too have a mind." These 
are his examples, their success is the pledge 
of his own, and he is thankful that the world 
offers resistance enough to his progress to call 
for efforts which may identify him, with the 
benefactors of mankind. Others have had 
their difficulties to encounter, and he would 
not be without his ; he entertains no inferior 
hope and stipulates for no inferior task. 

6. Learning deranges the state of society 
by destroying the natural equality of indi- 
viduals ; and hence the cultivation of the 
mind becomes indispensable as a means of 
self-preservation. To be ignorant, is to allow 
others more knowledge of us than we have of 
ourselves. It is to give them the same ad- 
vantage over us, that one who can see has 



MOTIVES. 213 

over one that is blind. Could we consent to 
part with our physical faculties and powers — 
the eyes, the ears, the hands or the feet, we 
should be no more helpless nor foolish than 
he who suffers his mind to be uncultivated. 
Science is an inexhaustible source of felicity 
and power to mankind ; and prosperity is 
little more than a name for the practical 
application of knowledge to the affairs of life. 
"What do we require to combat disease, to 
gain wealth, or to expound the laws of nature, 
but more knowledge ? The unlearned, if it 
is their fortune to live among the intelligent, 
are as imbecile and dependent as children, 
continually liable to all sorts of impostures, 
and suffering without the possibility of aveng- 
ing injuries. Among society of their own 
grade, nature would assume the control, and 
as she has not given to lions and tigers, guns 
and swords, so she would not permit savage 
rusticity to arm itself with the tremendous 
power of science. Should it be thought that 
the great diversity of trades and sciences 
leaves even the learned obnoxious to this 
species of abuse, we have only to say that 



214 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

acquiescence on their part must be voluntary, 
as they have the means both of detection and 
redress in their own hands. Why has one 
nation despoiled another, and why has politi- 
cal, pecuniary and social depression afflicted 
large majorities of mankind in every age ? 
Is it not because ignorance disqualifies for 
high pursuits — dwarfs the affections, dims the 
eye and paralyzes the arm, reducing to vas- 
salage those whom nature meant to be free ? 
It is by ignorance that oppression is upheld. 
Let light in upon the public mind, and the 
most reckless despot dare not move. It was 
only under the cover of darkness that he 
ventured to approach his victim, and it is 
only while that covering shields him from 
observation that he has power to inflict the 
wrong. The acquisition of knowledge is 
therefore a dictate of necessity, and cannot 
be neglected by any who are not equally re- 
gardless of duty and of safety. Submission 
or intelligence is inevitable ; and those who 
fail of the latter, will not escape the former. 

7. This system affords the only real great- 
ness. Minds which never arrive at majority, 



MOTIVES. 215 

can never do more than to follow established 
usages. They learn what others have learned, 
and do what others have clone ; but this is a 
task that confers no distinction, because it 
evinces no capacity, or none that deserves to 
be noticed. It is by the performance of acts 
which require original talent that character 
is shown, and that character is formed. Such 
as tamely follow a leading mind have nothing 
that can be called their own ; they drift along 
with the current of other people's thoughts, 
too inactive to think for themselves and too 
unaspiring to attempt anything new. What 
Dr. Aikin has observed in reference to some 
who fill important stations in society, is not 
less applicable to many who pass for learned 
men. "The great affairs of the world are 
frequently conducted by persons who have no 
other title to distinction than merely as as- 
sociated with these affairs. With abilities not 
at all superior to those of a clerk in an office, 
or a subaltern in a regiment, the civil and 
military concerns of great nations are often 
managed according to a regular routine, by 
men whom chance of birth alone has elevated 



216 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

to high, stations. Such characters appear in 
history with a consequence not really belong- 
ing to them ; and it seems the duty of a 
biographer in these cases to detach the man 
from his station, and either entirely to omit, 
or reduce to a very slight notice, the me- 
morial of one whose personal qualities had 
no real influence over the events of his age, 
and afford nothing to admire or to imitate."* 
However great the powers of the mind may 
be, they can only develop themselves to our 
view by their acts ; where these acts, by 
which alone our judgment is to be determined, 
bespeak nothing original — nothing but abso- 
lute dependence and blind obsequiousness, we 
justly conclude either that there is no talent 
or that none has been employed. Now, as 
talent cannot be known even to its possessor 
except by this practical application, and as 
what we attempt must ever bear some propor- 
tion to the estimate we place upon our abili- 
ties, the beneficial tendency of a system cal- 
culated to elicit these powers in the highest 
degree becomes fully apparent. The indi- 
* Memoir of John Aikin, p. 112. 



MOTIVES. 217 

vidual learns the measure of his strength, and 
aims at objects great enough to occupy that 
strength ; but left to ignorance of himself, 
his powers are sure to be wasted upon puerili- 
ties. He may glide along the beaten path 
of science, but it is with a mean servility that 
provokes only contempt ; he creeps where he 
ought to walk, and bows where he ought to 
stand erect. He divests mind of its preroga- 
tives and sinks it to the level of matter ; re- 
ceives direction from everything and gives 
direction to nothing. " No business or study," 
says Dr. Channing, " which does not present 
obstacles, tasking to the full the intellect and 
the will, is worthy of a man. In science, he 
who does not grapple with hard questions, 
who does not concentrate* his whole intellect 
in vigorous attention, who does not aim to 
penetrate what at first repels him, will never 
attain to mental force." This assertion is so 
perfectly in accordance with the laws of mind 
and the history of intellectual character, that 
we cannot but wonder how any should have 
been so far mistaken as to hope for excellence 



218 VOTING MAN'S BOOK. 

by other means, or as to deem the obstacles 
to self-education real disadvantages. 

8. A generous nature will not only aim to 
possess real greatness, but also to diffuse it. 
This can best be accomplished by the influ- 
ence of example, as one successful instance 
settles the question of practicability in favor 
of all who wish to repeat the attempt. "We 
need only to know what others have done to 
feel a sort of compulsion to do at least as 
much. Men are both imitative and sympa- 
thetic, hence, a brilliant example never fails 
of extensive effect. All see that what has 
been done, can be done ; all feel that what 
may be done, should be done. It is thus that 
such a literary character as Shakspeare, has 
infused hope into myriads of minds that 
might otherwise have sunk in despondency. 
The man who was to stand at the head of 
English literature was not to be a cloistered 
student of Oxford or of Cambridge. This 
honor was reserved for one who owed nothing 
to colleges, or to college studies — for one 
who, in the graphic language of Ben Jonson, 
"had small Latin and less Greek," and whose 



MOTIVES. 219 

only school was the theatre. The genius of 
learning passed by the polyglots of that age 
and devolved this high distinction upon one 
of the lowest pretensions, and, apparently, in 
the most unpropitious circumstances — upon 
a servant boy, without science, and without 
assistance. Every example of this kind in- 
spires confidence in those who are denied the 
usual advantages for improvement. As soon 
as they perceive that it is not unreasonable 
to hope for the highest excellence, they be- 
come conscious that their exertions cannot be 
in vain. 

It is under the excitement produced by 
such a state of mind, that the soul acquires 
its mastery over opposing circumstances. 

" The fixed and noble mind 
Turns all occurrence to its own advantage." 

This unalterable purpose often gives to the 
very slightest means the greatest efficiency. 
Powers never deemed equal to high achieve- 
ment suddenly assume control, and nothing 
is able to impede the progress of him who 
seems to be helped by nothing. The indi- 



220 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

vicinal, in such cases, is not without help ; 
but being without the usual help, he is sup- 
posed to have none. His success arises from 
the force of application. To use a mechani- 
cal phrase, it is the increased momentum with 
which the obstacles before him are assailed, 
that makes them yield to such naturally 
feeble means. Mr. Mudie says, that a single 
thread of a spieler's web, might be made to 
move fast enough to cleave the earth asun- 
der. ISTow, although this is somewhat extrav- 
agant, and like the infinite divisibility of 
matter, deserves to rank with scholastic fic- 
tions, yet it is undoubtedly true that the 
slender means in the hands of every youth, 
may be applied with sufficient force to over- 
come all difficulties in the way of his ad- 
vancement. When difficulties have thus been 
overcome solely by dint of application, there 
remains a much more complete sense of inde- 
pendence than if the work had been effected 
by the help of accumulated facilities. 



CHAPTER XL 

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS DEMANDED BY 
THE ENTERPRISE. 

Having- shown that self-education is both 
a solid and a practicable attainment, I shall 
designate some of the traits of mental char- 
acter, on which its acquisition depends. 

1. The first undoubtedly is, such a love of 
study as leads to an industrious application. 
For, although every mind has capacity 
enough to know all that can be known, and 
has actually learned numberless truths equal 
in importance to any which it still has to 
learn, yet every mind has not sufficient in- 
dustry to acquire all that is within its reach. 
A considerable part of knowledge is sponta- 
neous and inevitable, but the balance depends 
upon a voluntary application of powers which 
many are never inclined to devote to that 
object. 



222 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

2. The next requisite is firmness of pur- 
pose. There must be an unalterable purpose 
to have an education, or everything is uncer- 
tain. When this determination is properly 
fixed in the mind, there need be no fear, 
except in a contest with divine Providence — 
and Providence itself often yields to an un- 
compromising sense of want. It is generally 
deemed advisable not to engage in pursuits 
without a fair probability of success, but here 
we fling probabilities to the wind, as there is 
no retreat without worse disaster than can 
possibly attend perseverance. The fact is, 
when the mind first determines upon this en- 
terprise, it is influenced by higher considera- 
tions than can ever be brought to bear upon 
its relinquishment. Education, like religion, 
is a privilege and a blessing, not to be fore- 
gone, even with the consent and by the ad- 
vice of the public. 

Firmness is indeed necessary to respecta- 
bility of character as well as to practical 
efficiency ; and the individual who lacks this 
important quality is unfitted for any arduous 
service, and peculiarly so for that now under 



CHARACTERISTICS. 223 

consideration. " A man without decision can 
never be said to belong to himself ; since, if 
he dared to assert that he did, the puny force 
of some cause, about as powerful, you would 
have supposed, as a spider, may make a cap- 
ture of the hapless boaster the very next 
moment, and triumphantly exhibit the futil- 
ity of the determinations by which he was 
to have proved the independence of his un- 
derstanding and his will. He belongs to 
whatever can seize him ; and innumerable 
things do actually verify their claim on him 
and arrest him as he tries to go along ; as 
twigs and chijDS, floating near the edge of a 
river, are intercepted by every weed, and 
whirled in every little eddy. Having con- 
cluded on a design, he may pledge himself 
to it, — if the hundred diversities of feeling 
which may come within the week, will let 
him. As his character precludes all foresight 
of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what 
form or direction his views and actions are 
destined to take to-morrow ; as a farmer has 
often to acknowledge the next day's proceed- 



224 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

ings are at the disposal of its winds and 
clouds. 

" This man's opinions and determinations 
always depend very much on other human 
beings ; and what chance for stability, while 
the persons with whom he may converse, or 
transact, are so various ? This very evening 
he may talk with a man whose sentiments 
will melt away the present form and outline 
of his purposes, however firm and defined he 
may have fancied them to be. A succession 
of persons whose faculties were stronger than 
his own, might, in spite of his irresolute reac- 
tion, take him and dispose of him as they 
pleased. An infirm character practically 
confesses itself made for subjection, and the 
man so constituted passes, like a slave, from 
owner to owner. 

" It is inevitable that the regulation of 
every man's plan must greatly depend on 
the course of events, which come in an order 
not to be foreseen or prevented. But in ac- 
commodating the plans of conduct to the 
train of events, the difference between two 
men may be no less than that, in the one 



CHARACTERISTICS. 225 

instance the man is subservient to the events, 
and in the other, the events are made sub- 
servient to the man. Some men seem to 
have been taken along by a succession of 
events, and, as it were, handed forward in 
quiet passiveness from one to another ; with- 
out any determined principle in their own 
characters, by which they could constrain 
those events to serve a design formed ante- 
cedently to them, or apparently in defiance 
of them. The events seized them as a neu- 
tral material, not they the events. Others, 
advancing through life, with an internal, in- 
vincible determination of mind, have seemed 
to make the train of circumstances, whatever 
they were, conduce as much to their chief 
design as if they had taken place on purpose. 
It is wonderful how even the apparent casu- 
alties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will 
not bow to them, and yield to assist a design 
after having in vain attempted to frustrate 
it. 

" Another advantage of this character is, 
that it exempts from a great deal of interfer- 
ence and persecution to which an irresolute 

15 



226 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

man is subjected. "Weakness in every form 
tempts arrogance; and a man may be al- 
lowed to wish, for a land of character with 
which stupidity and impertinence may not 
make so free. When a decisive spirit is 
recognized, it is curious to see how the space 
clears around a man, and leaves him room 
and freedom. This disposition to interrogate, 
dictate, or banter, preserves a respectful and 
politic distance, judging it not unwise to 
keep the peace with a person of so much 
energy. A conviction that he understands 
and that he wills with extraordinary force, 
silences the conceit that intended to perplex 
or instruct him, and intimidates the malice 
that was disposed to attack him. There is a 
feeling, as in respect to fate, that the decrees 
of so inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, 
at least, they will be accomplished."* 

3. Another characteristical endowment is, 
a consciousness of intellectual ability. Those 
who may wish for authority in support of a 
sentiment like this are referred to the biogra- 
phies of eminent men. But those who are 
* Foster on Decision of Character. Letter 1. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 227 

candid and fearless enough to admit what 
passes within them, and have sufficient sta- 
mina to promise success in the hardy en-, 
terprise of self-education, can cheerfully 
attest the correctness of this position. This 
peculiarity is thus noticed by Dr. Johnson, 
in reference to two of the most distinguished 
English poets, Pope and Milton : " Self-con- 
fidence is the first requisite to great under 
takings. He, indeed, who forms his opinion 
of himself in solitude without knowing the 
powers of other men, is very liable to error ; 
but it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself 
at his real value."* Of Milton he says : "It 
appears in all his writings that he had the 
usual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty 
and steady confidence in himself." " In this 
book (a work on Prelacy) he discovers, not 
with ostentatious exultation, but with calm 
confidence, his high opinion of his own pow- 
ers ; and promises to undertake something, 
he yet knows not what, that may be of use 
and honor to his country. ' This,' says he, 
' is not to be obtained but by devout prayer 
* Life of Pope. 



22S YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with 
all utterance and knowledge, and sends out 
his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his 
altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom 
he pleases. To this must he added, indus- 
trious and select reading, steady observation, 
and insight into all seemly and generous arts 
and affairs ; till which in some measure be 
compassed, I refuse not to sustain this expec- 
tation. 5 From a promise like this, at once 
fervid, pious and rational, might be expected 
the Paradise Lost."" Indeed they who un- 
dertake to do without assistance what others 
have found a hard task when aided by every 
possible help, may well be pardoned some 
reliance upon the vigor of their own under- 
standings. How early this feeling of confi- 
dence develops itself, is matter of conjecture, 
but probably it is coeval with the formation 
of the adjunct peculiarities that enter into 
the constitution of great minds. This confi- 
dence enabled Columbus to adhere to his 
conclusions and plans — to defend them, and 
secure patronage to complete the most haz- 

* Life of Milton. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 229 

ardons voyage ever undertaken. Numerous 
instances might be adduced where a con- 
sciousness" of ability and of the rectitude of 
his proceedings, has remained to the abettor 
of noble enterprises, as his chief support amid 
the treachery and imbecility of surrounding 
contemporaries. 

4. A willingness to engage in difficult and 
dangerous attempts, or high mental courage, 
is the next attribute of a mind adapted to the 
exigencies of this pursuit. If the derision 
with which pride and insolence never fail to 
treat those who are below them in external 
advantages, has any terrors to the aspiring 
mind, there is little hope of success. If we 
grant, for the sake of the argument, that 
there will be a competition between the self- 
educated and the college graduate, will it 
tend to the disparagement of the former? 
Certainly not. The whole strife must be 
upon grounds not before occupied by either 
party, for who disputes about the elements 
of knowledge that are taught in schools ? He 
who fears to advocate the truth merely be- 
cause the battery of formal criticism will be 



230 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

opened upon him, may properly be excused 
from taking any part in the service of man- 
kind. Such a timidity shrinks from the path 
of duty, and would shackle effectually the 
most finished scholar. The literati inflict 
uj)on each other the most caustic reviews 
and criticisms. Longinus says, that the blem- 
ishes of the best Greek writers — and the 
Greek writers are reputed the best in the 
world — greatly exceed their beauties. "If 
any one should pick out the slips of Homer, 
Demosthenes, Plato, and the other consum- 
mate authors, and put them together, the 
instances in which those heroes of fine writ- 
ing have attained to absolute perfection, 
would be found to bear a very small, nay, 
an indefinitely small, proportion to them."* 
Nor is there any reason why irregularity in 
education should furnish a sanctuary for 
mistakes. 

Self-education is not necessarily imperfect, 
and the reproach and suspicion with which 
it stands connected in the minds of some, 
have arisen from weak and superficial at- 

* On the Sublime, sec. 36. 



CHAEACTEEISTICS. 231 

tempts, or from an utter want of judgment 
and taste which is so characteristic of a few 
who have had the entire control of their own 
education. What if a few have been justly 
chastised for carelessness, and censured for 
palpable faults ? shall we refrain from mak- 
ing a declaration of our sentiments for no 
other reason than this — that obvious literary 
abuses cannot be tolerated? It would be 
better to take the course of the celebrated 
John Howard, who, not understanding the 
grammar of his native language as fully as 
was desirable, employed a more competent 
hand to revise his works before they went to 
the press.* It is far more difficult to acquire 
sentiments and truths that shall deserve pub- 
licity, than to clothe them in appropriate 
diction. Yet it must be acknowledged that 
they who have not industry enough to learn 
to write, are not likely either to form valua- 
ble conclusions, or make new and useful 
discoveries. 

Literary efforts, although entirely useless 
in themselves, tend to the formation of habits 
* See Life of Howard, by Dr. Aikin. 



232 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

decisive of future eminence. And to dis- 
courage juvenile efforts for fear of a draw- 
back upon the popularity of after life, evinces 
no particular discernment. There is a sort 
of apprenticeship in great business as well 
as small, in which to look for perfect efforts 
is a violation of common sense. Those, there- 
fore, who would be so cautious as never to 
err, are left to the sad alternative of never 
beginning. 

Nothing can be more certainly destructive 
of all the possibilities of improvement than 
this excessive and needless fear. " An heroic 
mind is more wanted in the library or the 
studio than in the field. It is wealth and 
cowardice which extinguish the light of ge- 
nius and dig the grave of literature as of 
nations. "* There can be no excellence where 
there is not originality, and there can be no 
originality where there is not independence. 
'Nor is there the danger in putting forth new 
exertions which many have supposed. It is 
commonly imagined that great geniuses haz- 
ard their reputation by every subsequent ef- 
* Blackwood's Magazine, January. 1845. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 233 

fort, but it would be difficult to assign any 
sufficient reason for an assumption of this 
kind. Unless the intellect exhausts itself 
by its labors, of which there is not the least 
evidence, we see not why its successive pro- 
ductions may not possess the same intrinsic 
excellence. 

5. In the mind of every successful student 
literature and science are made an integral 
part of the leading enterprise. No man was 
ever learned by chance. Attainments of this 
kind are the result of industry directed to a 
specific object, whether that object be a live- 
lihood, the establishment of important prin- 
ciples, or competency in any of the profes- 
sions. When the importance of science is 
duly recognized, it no longer ranks as a mere 
contingency; the individual pays the same 
attention to his studies as to his other pur- 
suits. Learning, once regarded as necessary, 
ceases to depend upon convenience, and is 
reached like any other indispensable object 
without reference to time or money. What 
we must have, we rarely fail to obtain. This 
accounts for the extraordinary acquisitions 



234 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

of some eminent men — their purpose carried 
with it a necessity for just such acquirements. 
Dr. Webster after he had concluded to write 
his American Dictionary, spent ten years in 
preparatory studies, although he was at that 
time one of the most accomplished and pro- 
found scholars. During this period he ac- 
quired a competent knowledge of twenty 
foreign languages. Eow if this accession of 
knowledge had not been rendered necessary 
by the part which the great lexicographer 
had assigned to himself, and if that necessity 
had not been felt in his own mind, he would 
never have grasped at these vast literary 
treasures. Those who think to serve either 
the public or themselves efficiently without 
science, give us no reason to believe they 
will ever obtain an education, and our con- 
viction of the futility of their casual studies 
should not be withheld from their knowledge. 
These are among the more obvious peculi- 
arities of mind demanded by literary and 
scientific pursuits. We have not enumerated 
genius as one of these requisites, because its 
existence, beyond what is implied in the 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



235 



qualities here specified, is not essential to 
success. He who loves an enterprise, who 
resolves to accomplish it, who dares to meet 
every danger which it involves, and who 
makes his arrangements accordingly, can 
never be defeated. These energies, if not 
genius, are at least equivalent to genius; 
they secure the desired result with as much 
certainty, if not with as much facility. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

ERRORS OF SELF-EDUCATION. 

It is a fact not to be disguised that self- 
education has been regarded as peculiarly 
and hopelessly defective ; its character for 
error is such that those who claim to fix the 
meaning of language would withhold from it 
the very name ef education. But a little at- 
tention will place this subject in a different 
light — in a light so different that the alleged 
imperfection will be found to be a positive 
excellence. 

The errors charged upon self-education 
consist chiefly in violating some of the minor 
rules of criticism. Yet the observance of 
such rules is utterly impossible to a work of 
genius. Self-education is an original work, 
and must have all the peculiarities of an ori- 
ginal work. The critics have undertaken a 
task which they can never execute. They 



ERRORS. 237 

would give laws to language and laws - to 
mind ; but they cannot do either without de- 
stroying what they attempt to improve. 
Wherever their authority is acknowledged as 
paramount, there genius dies and improve- 
ment ends. The effect of their labors has 
never been more complete than in France, 
and never more disastrous. Dr. Campbell, 
having noticed the absurdities which, in our 
own language, have resulted from this volun- 
teer service, says : "The French critics, and 
even the academy, have proceeded, if not al- 
ways in the same manner, on much the same 
principle in the improvements they have 
made on their language. They have indeed 
cleared it of many, not of all their low idioms, 
cant phrases, and useless anomalies ; they 
have rendered the style in the main more 
perspicuous, more grammatical, and more 
precise than it was before. But they have 
not known where to stop. Their criticisms 
often degenerate into refinements, and every- 
thing is carried to excess. If one mode of 
construction, or form of expression, hath been 
lucky enough to please these arbitrators of 



238 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

the public taste, and to obtain their sanction, 
no different mode or form must expect so 
much as a toleration. What is the conse- 
quence ? They have purified their language ; 
at the same time they have impoverished it, 
and have, in a considerable measure, reduced 
all kinds of composition to a tasteless uni- 
formity. Accordingly, in perhaps no lan- 
guage, ancient or modern, will you find so 
little variety of expression in the various 
kinds of writing, as in the French. In prose 
or verse, in philosophy and romance, in 
tragedy and comedy, in epic and pastoral, 
the difference may be very great in the sen- 
timents, but it is nothing, or next to nothing, 
in the style." Well and sternly does he add, 
" Is this insipid sameness to be envied them 
as an excellence ? Or shall we Britons, who 
are lovers of freedom almost to idolatry, vol- 
untarily hamper ourselves in the trammels 
of the French academy?"* 

Here then we see what criticism can do for 
the perfection of languages. It can pervert 
and destroy, but it cannot improve them. 
* Philosophy of Rhetoric, b. 3, chap. 4, sec. 2. 



ERRORS. 239 

The languages of Greece and Home were 
excellent, but they attained their excellence, 
and all their excellence, before the critics lent 
their assistance. The languages of these na- 
tions rose and declined with their virtues, and 
philology had nothing to do with their origin 
or continuance. But the whole subject de- 
rives its greatest light from the fact that 
words are only representatives of ideas. 
Grammar and rhetoric belong to thought, 
they exist in the thought before they are 
transferred to words. Hence the operations 
of the critic should be directed to mind rather 
than to language. He should teach us how 
to shape our ideas, as ideas must determine 
both the character and arrangements of words. 
The author to whom we have just referred, 
makes a distinction between rhetoric, and 
grammar, the correctness of which we are not 
able to perceive. He thinks the former is a 
natural and the latter an artificial method. 
" From all the examples above quoted, those 
especially taken from holy writ, the learned 
reader, after comparing them carefully, both 
with the original, and with the translations 



240 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

cited in the margin, will be enabled to deduce, 
with as much certainty as the nature of the 
question admits that that arrangement which 
I call rhetorical, as contributing to vivacity 
and animation, is, in the strictest sense of the 
word, agreeably to what hath been already 
suggested, a natural arrangement ; that the 
principle which leads to it operates similarly 
on every people, and in every language, 
though it is much more checked by the idiom 
of some tongues than by that of others ; that, 
on the contrary, the more common, and what 
for distinction's sake I shall call the gram- 
matical order, is, in a great measure, an ar- 
rangement of convention, and differs con- 
siderably in different languages. He will 
discover, also, that to render the conventional 
or artificial arrangement, as it were, sacred 
and' inviolable, by representing every devia- 
tion (whatever be the subject, whatever be 
the design of the work) as a trespass against 
the laws of composition in the language, is 
one of the most effectual ways of stinting the 
powers of elocution, and even of damping the 
vigor both of imagination and of passion. I 



EKROKS. 24:1 

observe this the rather, that, in my apprehen- 
sion, the criticism that prevails amongst ns at 
present leans too much this way."* This is 
most certainly a distinction without a differ- 
ence. These kindred sciences are so inter- 
woven with each other, and the relation which 
fchey hold to language is so similar, as to make 
it altogether improbable that they should not 
have a common origin. They are constituent 
principles of speech and without them lan- 
guage, whether written or spoken, cannot 
exist — cannot, because it would cease to repre- 
sent things. We have no evidence that any, 
even the most unimportant part of language 
is the work of man, and whenever he has 
attempted to improve this production of na- 
ture, his efforts have necessarily impaired 
what had otherwise been perfect.f 

* B. 3. chap. 3, sec. 2. 

•f " All languages whatever, even the most barharous, as 
far as hath yet appeared, are of a regular and analogical 
make." Philosophy of Rhetoric, b. 2, chap. 7, sec. 1. 

" If language is a human invention, it was the invention 
of savage man, and this creation of barbarism would be a 
higher trophy to human power than any achievement of 
% rfilization. The study of the rudest dialects tends to 

, ve, if it does not conclusively prove, that it was not man 

16 



242 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

It follows therefore that those faults which 
are alleged against self-education, are only 
traits of independent genius — mere varieties 
of nature, and inseparable from original 
achievement. This conclusion is strengthened 
not a little by the remarkable fact that no 
eminent writer has ever paid the least atten- 
tion to what may be called the critical code. 
Every great writer has followed his own taste 
and judgment, to the neglect of all rules and 
all authorities, except so far as they may in- 
cidentally have been a matter of convenience. 
"Nov has this refusal to take the advice of 
critics abated in any degree the fame or the 
usefulness of these authors. Who reads Dr. 
Johnson the less because his style has been 
severely censured? or, who for this reason 
will lay aside the volumes of Jonathan Ed- 
wards? when will Locke or Shakspeare be- 
come as obsolete as some of their phrases ? or 
in other words, when will they be rejected 
out of regard to the laws of style ? As none 
of these valuable writers, nor any like them, 

who made language, but he who made man gave him utter 
ance." Bancroft's History,, vol. 3, p. 268. 



EEEOES. 243 

will ever be the less esteemed for such de- 
fects, — if defects they be, — it follows that the 
authority of criticism is merely nominal ; 
that it never had, and never can have, any 
real influence upon the destiny of genius. 

There is another class of errors having their 
origin, not in constitutional peculiarities, but 
in a divergence from the common path of in- 
formation. Not unfrequently is the self- 
educated man obliged to glean his knowledge 
from sources wholly unknown to the ordinary 
student. Whether this necessity is upon the 
whole any disadvantage is another question 
altogether, but if after being educated in this 
manner he is to be tried by the common 
standard of attainments, he will no doubt 
appear deficient. And who would not ? It 
is no way probable that Homer had the 
knowledge necessary to an examination in 
one of our modern schools. Demosthenes and 
Cicero united could not have answered half 
the questions in one of our works on elocu- 
tion. Hannibal knew nothing of tactics, nor 
Archimedes of mathematics, compared with 
a student at West Point. Bacon was no 



2i4 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

philosopher if the lessons of the present day 
are made the standard, and Chesterfield would 
be taken for a clown by a mo&empetit maitre. 
Such are the absurdities which inevitably 
result from the assumption that education 
depends upon a particular class of studies. 
"We therefore conclude that a person who is 
really ignorant of many things embraced in 
the popular system of instruction, may still 
be justly considered as educated. Among 
this class of errors are to be ranked certain 
mistakes in the use of language — mistakes 
which no more prove that their authors are 
uneducated than the imperfect efforts of a 
foreigner to speak our language prove that 
lie is illiterate. Terms familiar to those who 
have read one author may be wholly unknown 
to those whose reading has been confined 
to other authors. ■ For this reason a person 
of no inferior knowledge might confound 
Ptolemy the geographer with Ptolemy king 
of Egypt, or regard Cicero and Tully as 
different individuals. In a letter to lord Mon- 
tagu, Sir Walter Scott mentions a similar 
blunder committed by the Ettrick Shepherd. 



EKR0KS. 



245 



" Hogg is here busy with his Jacobite songs. 
I wish he may get handsomely through, for 
he is profoundly ignorant of history, and it is 
an awkward thing to read in order that you 
may write. I give him all the help I can, 
but he sometimes poses me. For instance, 
he came yesterday, open mouth, inquiring 
what great dignified clergyman had distin- 
guished himself at Killiecrankie — not exactly 
the scene where one would have expected a 
churchman to shine — and I found, with some 
difficulty, that he had mistaken Major-General 
Canon, called, in Kennedy's Latin song, 
Canonicus Gallomdiensis, for the canon of a 
cathedral."* There is a passage often quoted 
from Dr. Johnson, which I believe ho one 
would be likely to understand without read- 
ing it in its original connection. " That man 
is little to be envied, whose patriotism would 
not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or 
whose piety would not grow warmer among 
the ruins of Iona."f The classic field of 
Marathon — known wherever anything of Gre- 

* Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. 4, p. 171. 
f Journey to the Western Islands. 



246 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

cian history is known — is here associated, not 
with some equally celebrated spot of the 
Eastern world, but with one of the Western 
Isles of Scotland. We cannot dispute the 
claims of Iona, yet its comparative obscurity 
leaves the reader dependent upon the author's 
narrative for a full understanding of this 
allusion. For the same reason, and to a 
much greater extent, all the merely technical 
terms of art and science, are unintelligible to 
those who have acquired their knowledge by 
original observation without the use of scholas- 
tic forms. Roger Bacon, whatever may have 
been his skill in chemistry, would not have 
recognized the substances with which he was 
familiar, if their names had been rehearsed 
according to the new chemical nomenclature. 
It is therefore somewhat worse than idle to 
allege defects of this kind as proof of igno- 
rance ; and it is even more ridiculous to offer 
them as evidence of a want of education, for 
a person may be ignorant of a particular 
science, and yet not be uneducated. JSTo one 
need either be, or appear to be, illiterate. 
because he has not made the circle of the 



ERRORS. 247 

sciences. Care should be taken to avoid the 
use of words which we do not understand, and 
if this is done, there will be no room for those 
blunders so frequent among the superficial 
and the thoughtless. It detracts nothing from 
the merit of genius that its acquisitions are 
not universal. " JSTo man," says Dr. Watts, 
" is obliged to learn everything." Much less 
is it necessary to dip into everything in order 
to acquire the character of a scholar. This 
character depends upon accuracy rather than 
extent ; it consists of knowledge rather than 
of boundless knowledge. 

Still we do not mean to say that self-edu- 
cation has not its errors. The truth is, there 
is no education but what has its defects ; and 
if most of those charged upon self-education 
may be referred to that unalterable law of 
nature, which gives rise to specific differ- 
ences, then the admission of its errors is no 
concession of inferiority. The assertion so 
often made in substance, — that self-education 
has nothing to lose by the most rigorous com- 
parison with that which is furnished by the 
schools — remains an established fact. Faults 



248 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

it lias, but they are the faults of greatness. 
They are such faults as are inseparable from 
intellectual exercise, unless in the low de- 
partment of mere mnemonics. They are 
errors, in short, which cannot be avoided 
without committing greater ones. If the so 
called regular student is not subject to them, 
it is because he dare not think for himself. 
He sacrifices all the chances of eminence to 
an ignoble fear of violating the foolish rules 
that critics have instituted without any au- 
thority but their own caprices. It is observed 
by Dr. Campbell in the latter of the preced- 
ing quotations from him, that to treat all 
deviations from the acknowledged standard 
of grammatical accuracy as violations of the 
laws of composition, " is one of the most 
effectual ways of stinting the powers of elo- 
cution, and even of damping the vigor both 
of imagination and of passion." He had too 
sagacious a mind not to perceive that the 
master-pieces of ancient and modern litera- 
ture were characterized by a freedom totally 
inconsistent with any great attention to such 
authority. He saw that they were pervaded 



ERRORS. 249 

by an ambition of higher excellence, and by 
an energy that conlcl not brook unauthorized 
control. He saw also that wherever the 
meddling of criticism had been regarded, 
wherever its inferior suggestions had been 
followed to the neglect of original genius, 
there talent had invariably sunk to medioc- 
rity, and drivelled in puerile imitations. Self- 
education may expose us to the censures of 
the critic ; but the obsequiousness too often 
contracted in the schools makes us contemp- 
tible to men of sense. One precludes the 
approbation of the aristocracy of learning ; 
the other deprives us of the merit necessary 
to immortality. Therefore if there are errors 
in the former, there are still greater errors in 
the latter ; and if the one demands our ut- 
most vigilance, the other demands a constant 
solicitude added to that vigilance. 

The evils arising from a predominance of 
criticism are well expressed by an anonymous 
author. " There is a most grievous impedi- 
ment to genius in later, or, as we term them, 
more civilized times, from which in earlier 
ages it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public 



250 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

opinion, the dread of ridicule — then teo often 
crush the strongest minds. The weight of 
former examples, the influence of early hab- 
its, the halo of long-established reputation, 
force original genius from the untrodden path 
of invention into the beaten one of imitation. 
Early talent feels itself overawed by the 
colossus which all the world adores ; it falls 
down and worships, instead of conceiving. 
The dread of ridicule extinguishes originality 
in its birth. Immense is the incubus thus 
laid upon the efforts of genius. It is the 
chief cause of the degradation of taste ; the 
artificial style, the want of original concep- 
tion, by which the literature of old nations 
is invariably distinguished. The early poet 
or painter who portrays what he feels or has 
seen, with no anxiety but to do so powerfully 
and truly, is relieved of a load which crushes 
his subsequent compeers to the earth.""" It 
is only in an enervated condition of the mind 
that the works of genius thus paralyze its 
powers. In a healthier state — when its fac- 
ulties are unimpaired by vice and unembar- 

* Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1845. 



ERRORS. 251 

rassed by false direction, the influence of 
great example is altogether salutary. Hence 
that decline to which the literature of old na- 
tions is subject, is an effect of dotage, and 
proves that the public mind is no longer 
competent to distinguish deeds. The genius 
that suffers itself to be crushed by " the 
weight of former examples," is only the 
feeble off-shoot of a greatness which neutral- 
ized unfavorable influences and rose to higher 
eminence as it met with sterner toils. 

Although the rules of criticism which self- 
education disregards are futile and of no 
authority whatever, yet there are certain 
general principles which enter into the com- 
position of every work of genius. These the 
judicious critic recognizes as essential to 
mental integrity, but with the details of their 
application he never attempts to interfere. 
They are such principles as may be said to 
originate works of excellence as well as to 
pervade them ; they are prerequisites with- 
out which such works cannot exist, and with 
which they cannot fail to exist. Longinus 
has given five directions for producing the 



252 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

sublime, but they are all clearly resolvable 
into the first two, which, according to his 
own admission, are natural endowments : — 
" Now there are, if I may so express it, five 
very copious sources of the sublime, if we 
presuppose a talent for speaking, as a com- 
mon foundation for these five sorts ; and in- 
deed without it, anything whatever will avail 
but little. 

"I. The jwst and most potent of these is a 
felicitous boldness in the thoughts, as I have 
laid down in my Essay on Xenophon. 

U IL The second is a capacity of intense 
and enthusiastic passion ; and these two con- 
stituents of the sublime, are for the most part 
the immediate gifts of nature ; whereas the 
remaining sources depend also upon art. 

"III. The third consists in a skilful mould- 
ing of figures, which are two-fold, of senti- 
ment and language. 

" IV. The fourth is a noble and graceful 
manner of expression, which is, not only to 
select significant and elegant words, but also 
to adorn the style, and embellish by the as- 
sistance of tropes. 



EBBOBS. 253 

" V. The fifth source of the sublime, which 
embraces all the preceding, is to construct 
the periods with all possible dignity and 
grandeur."* 

Every reader will at once perceive that the 
third and fourth of these rules are as really 
founded upon the two preceding ones, as the 
fifth is upon them ;ill united. This being the 
case, he who observes the first two cannot 
violate the three following. Boldness of 
thought gives boldness of language, and in- 
tense feeling secures intense expression. Nor 
can these results be obtained by any other 
means so perfectly. Most critics acknowl- 
edge the necessity of these fundamental prin- 
ciples, and then with strange inconsistency, 
proceed to furnish a multitude of rules di- 

ly subversive of the freedom and en< 
which they had enjoined, [t is this contra- 
diction of himself that makes the labors of 
the critic contemptible.f He would be re- 



* Longinus on the Sublime, sec 
•|- Pollok has well described this class of writers: 
" The critics - some, but few, 
Wcru worthy men, and earned renown which had 



254 YOTJNG MAN'S BOOK. 

speeted, and his efforts might be useful, if 
confined to a simple notation of the circum- 
stances under which the productions of genius 
take their rise. But consulted as an oracle — 
regarded as gravely dispensing a system of 
rules for the attainment of perfection, he 
sinks from the high character of a philo- 
sophical observer, to that lowest of intellec- 
tual objects — a literary mountebank. The 
independence in which self-education origin- 
ates, is peculiarly opposed to the success of 
such pretensions ; it compels men to think 
for themselves, and consequently to despise 
that affected and impertinent supervision 
which would teach them how to think. And 



Immortal roots ; but most were weak and vile. 
And, as a cloudy swarm of summer flies, 
With angry hum and slender lance, beset 
The sides of some huge animal ; so did 
They buzz about the illustrious man, and fain 
With his immortal honor, down the stream 
Of fame would have descended ; but, alas ! 
The hand of time drove them away. They were 
Indeed, a simple race of men, who had 
One only art, which taught them still to say, 
Whate'er was done might have been better done." 

Course of Time, b. 8. 



ERRORS. 255 

if it does not prevent mistakes in the appli- 
cation of their powers, it saves them at least 
from debasing their minds by meanness of 
purpose. 



CHAPTER XL 

SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC RULES. 

■No doubt the clamorous and impotent crit- 
icism which we have noticed in the previous 
chapter, derives its importance from the sup- 
posed necessity of adhering to certain pre- 
scribed forms or rules in our intellectual ef- 
forts. Hence the critic is guided not by com- 
mon sense and the nature of things — not by 
the inspiration of genius and the wide range 
of possibilities, but by arbitrary rules of his 
own creation. These canons are professedly 
established upon the works of genius ; they 
are pretended oracular responses given forth 
by the works of genius when interrogated by 
the mere compiler. How completely worth- 
less all such directions are will appear, if it 
can be shown that the productions of genius 
are spontaneous, and that the mind is self- 
directed on these occasions; we shall then 



EEKOES. 257 

see that rules have no more to do with these 
efforts than they have with the vegetation of 
a plant or the glittering of a diamond. Seve- 
ral considerations tend to establish this view 
of the subject. 

1. Many arts, and even sciences, are ac- 
quired at so early a period as effectually to 
preclude assistance of this kind. Children 
often learn to sing, not only without formal 
instruction, but before they are old enough 
to understand the nature of any rule what- 
ever. Others have performed feats in the 
various branches of mathematics while igno- 
rant of all rules and destitute of all assist- 
ance but the intuitive grasp of their own 
minds. In poetry we have abundant ex- 
amples of a similar precocity. Pope says 
of himself, 

" When yet a child, ere yet a fool to fame, 
I lisp ? d in numbers, for the numbers came ;" 

and he used to say that he could not remem- 
ber the time when he began to make verses. 

2. In this respect, however, the first, and 
the last efforts of genius are alike. They are 

17 



258 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

equally independent of the advantages which 
arise from the labor of previous scholars. 
The classifications and systematic arrange- 
ments made by their predecessors may be of 
occasional convenience, but are never indis- 
pensably necessary. Linnaeus, without those 
classifications in Botany and Natural History 
which have been so useful to all succeeding 
inquirers, was able to conduct his researches 
quite as successfully as more recent philoso- 
phers. ISTo rules have ever been given, or 
ever can be given, for producing the higher 
works of art. The ability which produces 
these works, if not, as some suppose, directly 
the gift of God, is at least the result of a 
cause over which the critic has no control. 
The resources of genius are within, not with- 
out. Its inherent power sets outward obsta- 
cles at defiance, and makes outward helps of 
trifling importance. The study of rules never 
made an artist or a scholar ; nor did the vio- 
lation of rules ever render a work of genius 
essentially defective. We need no other 
proof of this, than the fact that many of the 
best productions originated before such rules 



RULES. 



259 



had any existence. Writers succeed no bet- 
ter now than they did when these rules were 
wanting ; and those who disregard them do 
it with perfect impunity, if not with com- 
mendation. Homer is not the less popular 
because he was ignorant of them, nor is 
Shakspeare because he neglects them. The 
latter is especially recreant ; he pays no re- 
gard to the unities, often confounds charac- 
ters, and blends tragic with comic — faults 
which the most ordinary critic could have as- 
sured him would be fatal to his reputation ; 
but which, in fact, have never had the effect 
to make him other than the most popular of 
English writers. 

3. The same conclusion is reached by ob- 
serving the order in which the rules of art 
and science take their rise. They derive 
their existence from works of art, and hence 
never precede such works in the order of 
time. Until some writer has given an ex- 
ample of elegant composition, there are no 
rules for fine writing ; until some philosopher 
has discovered a science, there can be no 
rules for teaching that science ; and until an 



200 YOUNG MAX'S BOOK. 

art has been invented, all the rules of that art 
must be unknown, for with the knowledge of 
the art comes also the knowledge of its rules. 
Here, then, we see that both art and science 
may exist at any time, and must originally 
have existed, without method. Those sys- 
tematic forms by which their acquisition has 
been supposed to be greatly facilitated, are 
often embarrassments rather than helps. Our 
earliest knowledge is acquired without for- 
mal instruction, and there is little doubt but 
the highest possible attainments of which we 
are capable are to be achieved in the same 
manner. 

4. It should be observed, also, that genius 
is always in advance of the age ; it acts the 
part of a pioneer, urging its way forward to 
truths which the aggregate of society cannot 
know till long afterwards. This priority of 
effort utterly excludes the facilities in ques- 
tion. Others, who are to come after the first 
adventurer, may have guides, but he can 
have none. Alone, and perhaps contemned 
by those about him for his apparent reckless- 
ness, he passes on to realize the correctness 



RULES. 261 

of his own opinions, and to gain the reward 
of an unwavering, though solitary confidence. 
Columbus would never have discovered a 
new continent if he had waited till the popu- 
lar geography gave assurance of its existence, 
or until the improvement of navigation had 
demonstrated the practicability of such a 
vova°;e. Jenner would never have announced 
his theory of vaccination to the world if he 
had waited till it was virtually comprehended 
in the science of medicine, or even till his 
best friends had sanctioned its publicity.* A 
genius thus in advance of his contemporaries, 
must of necessity be like 

" Kneller, by Heav'n, and not a master taught, 
Whose art was nature and whose pictures thought." 

"Works of enduring fame are executed beyond 
the province of human instruction ; they 
speak of communings with a higher wisdom, 

* "It is not a little remarkable, that Mr. Hunter, like 
Jenner's friends at Alveston, thought so doubtingly of his 
views on vaccination, that he cautioned him against pub- 
lishing them, lest they should interfere with the fame he 
had acquired by his ' Essay on the Cuckoo.' " Distin- 
guished Men of Modern Times, vol. 2, p. 277. 



262 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

and their authors seem to feel as if the in- 
junction were addressed to them : " See that 
thou make all things according to the pattern 
showed thee in the mount." 



-CHAPTEK XIV. 

SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 

"We have seen how little dependent the 
human mind is on those systematic forms 
which are designed to promote the acquisition 
of the arts and sciences ; even the master- 
pieces of its achievement are the result of an 
inherent ability which needs no prompting 
and will admit of no control. This fact affords 
at least presumptive evidence that there is 
nothing indispensable in the advantages of 
association — that the aids of supervision are 
as unnecessary as the dictates of authority. 
Of this more direct proofs are not wanting. 

1. The intellect is not a planet reflecting 
only borrowed rays ; it is a sun shining by 
its own light. Its powers are original, not 
derived ; natural, not acquired. This ac- 
counts for those splendid works which had 
their origin almost in the dawn of human 



=< 



264 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

existence— for the pyramids of Egypt, the 
poems of Homer, and the Institutes of Menn. 
These are but instances of what the mind can 
accomplish whenever it pleases, without wait- 
ing for the benignant influence of schools to 
give it ability. Such works are an unfathom- 
able mystery to those who regard scholastic 
facilities as essential to greatness. On this 
hypothesis all improvement must be slow, 
because the intellect having no resources 
within itself and being incapable of directing 
its own energies, cannot become distinguished 
till assisted by the kindly office of instruc- 
tion. But this notion is effectually refuted 
by the fact that the very earliest ages of the 
world abound with the highest productions 
of human genius. 

2. That intellectual capacity which elevates 
mankind above the need of precarious assist- 
ance, seems to consist in the power of think- 
ing. The object of education is, not to learn 
the mind to think, but to make it think, 
and especially to direct its thoughts. Great 
thoughts are all that is necessary to improve- 
ment — they are improvement. What are the 



SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 265 

greatest inventions but conceptions of the 
mind which have been verified by experi- 
ment? All that can be called great or good 
in the intellectual world, is but a mere record 
of thought. He that would excel, must, 
therefore, rely upon the workings of his own 
mind. Now it is well known that this process 
of the mind is in no way dependent on schools, 
whether high or low. These institutions do 
not discourage thinking, but they restrict it 
to pre-conceived opinions, thus exercising the 
memory rather than those faculties which are 
more immediately conducive to intellectual 
eminence. But even allowing that they en- 
courage original thought, still this is a depart- 
ment of mental activity in which much assist- 
ance is neither practicable nor necessary. 

3. Another consideration of no small weight 
is, that the arts and sciences are the same 
everywhere. Language is the same in seclu- 
sion that it is in public ; the same in school 
and out of school. Latin is Latin, and Greek 
is Greek in spite of times, places, or numbers. 
There is, therefore, no necessity for resorting 
to literary emporiums as the standard of 



266 YOUNG man's book. 

lingual excellence, since language maintains 
an unalterable identity, and is equally perfect 
however it may be acquired. Pronunciation 
will be unknown to the solitary student, but 
it is no less unknown to the schools. That 
those who have the aids of schools may ad- 
vance faster we shall not dispute, for this is 
not a question of facility, but only of possi- 
bility. Science will unfold its wonders with 
equal astonishment to the private learner ; 
there are no arcana into which he may not 
penetrate, no rules the neglect of which will 
invalidate his acquisitions. The rapturous 
exclamation of* Archimedes, and the over- 
powering emotions of Newton, * exhibit alike 
the joy of the lone seeker of truth and 
the imperishable nature of his discoveries. 
Science has not only its identity wherever 
found, but such an ubiquity as makes it to be 

* The demonstration of a particular problem having oc- 
curred to Archimedes while he was bathing, he was so over- 
joyed that he leaped from the bath and ran through the 
streets of Syracuse, crying, " I have found it ! I have found 
it !" It is said that Sir Isaac Newton was so deeply affected 
when he perceived that his calculations were about to estab- 
lish the doctrine of Gravitation, that another hand had to 
finish the process. 



SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 267 

found everywhere. It speaks out in the 
revelations of the telescope and of the micros- 
cope, in the animal and in the vegetable king- 
doms, in the crust of the earth and in the 
firmament of heaven. All nature is great 
and redolent of truth to the philosophic mind. 
Such a mind can never be without lessons or 
instructors, for, like Shakspeare's Duke, it 

" Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

4. "Nobody," says Locke, " ever went far 
in knowledge or became eminent in any of 
the sciences, by the discipline and constraint 
of a master."* That there is a great want 
of stronger motives in these institutions there 
can be no doubt in the minds of any who ob- 
serve how little the majority of students profit 
by the advantages which they enjoy. That 
some make great proficiency varies not the 
case, for such would make proficiency under 
any circumstances. It is not the fear of cor- 
rection, nor the hope of reward within the in- 
stitution, that stimulates them to industry ; 

* Locke on Education, sec. 94. 



268 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

nor yet is it a consciousness that such advan- 
tages are of short continuance, or that their 
studies cannot be prosecuted elsewhere with 
success. These lesser motives undoubtedly 
have some influence, but the grand cause is 
the love of knowledge and the desire of im- 
provement. Where this is wanting, though 
there may be diligence enough to secure 
from censure and success enough to save 
from contempt, yet the higher elements of 
scholastic proficiency are absent, and the in- 
dividual must sink for want of influences 
which the schools cannot supply. A student 
of this class may be something in school, in 
another place he would be nothing. If, then, 
the motives which alone are decisive of high 
attainments exist as fully with the private 
scholar as with any other, — if the mind 
gathers no higher — no unwonted inspiration 
in the halls of science, and if the abilities to 
be displayed in such institutions must be 
brought there, we may safely conclude that 
the human faculties have no radical connec- 
tion with such advantages, and cannot be 
paralyzed by the want of them. 



SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 269 

5. These institutions are circumscribed. 
The work of education begins with the first 
moments of conscious existence, and some of 
our most valuable acquisitions are made, not 
only before the period at which scholastic in- 
struction usually begins, but even before the 
period to which memory is afterwards to ex- 
tend. At this time we learn to walk and to 
talk, to know our friends and to feel our 
wants. To these branches of knowledge, 
which are necessarily acquired before the 
schools lend their assistance, must be added 
both collateral and subsequent acquirements : 
those which we gain by other means while 
the schools are in progress, as the knowledge 
of business and of social life ; and those which 
we gain after they have closed, as a knowl- 
edge of new sciences and a more profound 
acquaintance with such as had been pre- 
viously studied. From the fact that these in- 
stitutions, however useful, do not propose to 
teach but a small part of what all must learn, 
we conclude that they are not essential to 
learning — that the mind is as competent to 
learn without their assistance what they pro- 



270 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

pose to teach, as it certainly is to learn with- 
ont such assistance what they do not propose 
to teach. That some can teach does not prove 
that others must be taught. 

6. It has been well remarked by Mrs. Far- 
rar, that "where school education ends, there 
self-education must begin."* This unavoid- 
able necessity of ultimately practising on a 
different principle, shows clearly enough that 
there is something excellent in that only other 
way which is open to us. The method that 
must answer for all the great enterprises of 
maturer years, may, if adopted from neces- 
sity, prove very efficient in the less difficult 
undertakings of juvenile life. But as self- 
education is the destiny of all who continue 
to improve — of some earlier, and of others 
later — we cannot regard the common scho- 
lastic advantages as by any means complete. 
They are only introductory to the constitu- 
tional plan; they terminate in -the method 
of nature — in self-direction. 

7. Some degree of care is necessary that 
these advantages, which are never absolutely 

* See her excellent work on Female Education. 



SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 271 

requisite and must in all cases finally be laid 
aside, may not fail of accomplishing the 
good of which they are capable. Such insti- 
tutions can "be useful only while they recog- 
nize their own inferiority ; they are the ser- 
vants of mind and should never be allowed 
to usurp authority over it. Too often have 
they continued to teach exploded sciences ; 
too often have they persecuted those who had 
courage enough to think for themselves. 
These, and similar evils, are, in some meas- 
ure, inseparable from the didactic system, 
and in order to retain it we shall occasionally 
be obliged to let dogmatism pass for science ; 
but when this becomes a jDrevailing habit, 
when the teacher knows everything and the 
scholar nothing, and when the thing that has 
been is the only thing that can be, then the 
system and its products are alike contempt- 
ible. To such a state of things the words of 
Cowper are appropriate. 

" The schools became a scene 
Of solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts, 
His cap well lined with logic not his own, 
With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part, 
Proceeding soon a graduated dunce." 



272 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

Perhaps the habit of repeating from year 
to year, and from age to age, exactly the 
same lessons, would be less stultifying if the 
proper, initial character of such studies were 
always kept prominently in view. This, 
however, is not the case, and the fact that 
one is a graduate, announces, not so much 
that he has begun his studies, as, that he has 
reached the acme • of possible attainments. 
He has gained the farthest goal — his educa- 
tion is finished — he is a graduate. However 
useful college acquirements may be under 
other circumstances, where such an impres- 
sion prevails they can only be regarded as a 
source of mischievous pedantry. 

8. The schools are mostly confined to those 
branches of knowledge which are only of 
relative importance. Of this class are lan- 
guage and mathematics. This is generally 
considered as one of the happiest arrange- 
ments, because these are the instruments by 
which the mine of knowledge is to be work- 
ed. But knowledge and the means of ac- 
quiring knowledge are things very different ; 
the latter derive all their consequence from 



SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 273 

the former, and should be esteemed of no im- 
portance, except when applied to their legiti- 
mate purpose. An education consisting chief- 
ly of these relative attainments, must always 
be of very little advantage to its possessor 
until he has had time to make the necessary 
application of his newly acquired powers. 
Greek applied would give us the history of 
Greece and whatever else of history or of 
science the language might develop ; but 
Greek unapplied gives us nothing save a 
useless collection of signs. Now, although 
we may not undervalue such acquisitions, yet 
they indicate sufficiently how imperfect that 
education must be which is confined to things 
of no independent value. 

9. It should not be forgotten that literature 
reached its zenith long before colleges or uni- 
versities had any existence. At least that it 
did, is the opinion of those who so much ad- 
mire the ancient classics. "We need not now 
inquire into the causes which originated and 
polished the literature of Greece and Kome ; 
the fact itself is indisputable, and as to the 

18 



274 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

cause or causes it is enough to note the ab- 
sence of that which is mainly relied on, in 
modern times, for the accomplishment of such 
an object. Nothing could more fully estab- 
lish the incidental relation of these institu- 
tions to the progress of knowledge and to the 
general subject of mental improvement. 

10. The schools do, indeed, facilitate men- 
tal improvement. To deny this would be to 
insult the good sense of the age. It has not 
been my object to depreciate their excellence 
or to discourage the attendance of those who 
are able to avail themselves of such advan- 
tages. I have aimed to estimate, in view of 
the constitution of the mind and of the char- 
acter of these institutions, the value which 
ought to be placed on them for educational 
purposes. This, of course, results in abridg- 
ing certain extravagant claims which, as they 
can never be maintained, should never be as- 
serted. No literary aristocracy, no intellect- 
ual caste can be established on so narrow a 
foundation as the schools supply ; all real 
greatness is beyond the sphere of their ope- 



SCHOLASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 275 

rations, and dependent upon causes which 
they are equally unable to originate or to 
control. The aid which they afford is unde- 
niable ; but it is as manifestly of a very sec- 
ondary character, and can be dispensed with, 
when necessity requires, without detriment to 
intellectual culture. We see them following 
in the train, not leading the march of im- 
provement — humbly waiting to receive con- 
tributions of science from the hands of self- 
directed genius, and only capable of giving 
them an imperfect diffusion, without the hope 
of adding to their value. To make such in- 
stitutions essentially necessary to education, 
is to reverse all our ideas of human capabil- 
ity. Those who pride themselves -upon dis- 
tinctions of this kind, and who affect to look 
down with pity or with contempt upon the 
solitary student as one cut off from all the 
means of improvement, and doomed to per- 
petual illiteracy' — one that may never be 
classed with educated men, nor rise to re- 
spectable scholarship — are only to be pitied 
for their ostentatious ignorance ; for however 



276 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

much their acquisitions may rise above the 
common standard, they fall much farther 
below those exalted attainments which are 
possible to individual effort. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 

The various incidental observations which, 
in the course of this work, have been made 
on inventions and discoveries, have by no 
means exhausted the subject. And as it is a 
department of inquiry that from the nature 
of the case, falls wholly within the province 
of self-directed exertion, we shall resume the 
consideration of it in a few particulars which 
seem to require further notice. Their relative 
importance, the means by which they are to 
be effected, and the spirit in which they should 
be prosecuted, are the points requiring inves- 
tigation. 

I. Improvements in the arts and sciences 
are but improvements in society — so inti- 
mately blended is the state of knowledge with 
the condition of the world. Knowledge be- 



278 YODKG MAN'S BOOK. 

longs to mankind, and whatever increases it, 
increases their common inheritance, and mul- 
tiplies both their happiness and their strength. 
Hence, those who have labored successfully 
to make improvements, are always considered 
as benefactors of their race. And, whether 
it be just or not, reputation seems to be con- 
fined to this species of acquisition. The 
greatest names in science owe their celebrity 
almost entirely to their inventions or discov- 
eries. We should not have heard of Newton, 
or of Leibnitz, or of Iierschel, but for the dis- 
coveries which have immortalized their mem- 
ories. To learn what others have learned 
acids nothing to the general stock of knowl- 
edge, however much it may benefit the learner 
himself; and the public have little cause of 
gratitude because they have received little 
advantage. Had Newton merely gone over 
the sciences as they were taught in the uni- 
versities in his day, he would have performed 
what thousands have done, and been forgotten 
as thousands are ; but by venturing forward 
to unknown truths he enlarged the boundaries 
of knowledge, and made himself a name by 



INVENTIONS. 279 

giving new sciences to the world. "We would 
not be understood to say that the amplication 
and the diffusion of knowledge are not impor- 
tant ; their importance, however, has in it 
nothing uncommon — it is only what is required 
of every one and affords no ground for dis- 
tinction. The use of natural knowledge will 
save mankind from sinking to that degrada- 
tion which always attends the total neglect 
of the intellectual faculties, and the use of 
the sciences as they now are, will preserve to 
the world the very great advantages of which 
it is already possessed ; there are, however, 
other, and greater advantages in store — the 
future is full of possibilities that can only be 
reached by passing the present confines of 
knowledge. The prospects of society are 
worth more than its possessions ; yet, is there 
no advancing so as to realize these prospects 
except by the adventurous path of discovery. 
Bacon avowed it as the object of his philoso- 
phy to bring out these latent truths and by 
this means augment the number of the arts 
and sciences. " The end of our science," says 
he, " is not to discover arguments, but arts. 



280 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

not what is agreeable to certain principles, 
but the principles themselves, not probable 
reasons, but designations and indications of 
effects."* 

The numerous improvements which have 
taken place since the true object of philo- 
sophic inquiry was thus pointed out by 
Bacon, not only confirm the truth of his spec- 
ulations, but give cheering hope to all who 
are engaged in prosecuting schemes of inven- 
tion. Notwithstanding the evident impor- 
tance of the object which the inventor or 
the discoverer has in view, his labors seem 
never to be appreciated except when they 
happen to be successful. This shows that 
such efforts are not recognized by the public 
as legitimate, and that they are only approved 
in those instances where the greatness of the 
success renders the contrary impossible. For 
this evil there is perhaps no remedy but the 
increase of intelligence, by which the connec- 
tion between scientific invention and social 
welfare shall be better understood. 

* Distribution of the Instauration. 



INVENTIONS. 281 

II. The means of these achievements hap- 
pily are not of doubtful character. 

Knowledge is the way to knowledge. There 
is in all science a tendency to expansion, and 
this tendency is the pledge of new discoveries. 
But the mind is endowed with an original 
power of knowing, and can at all times gain 
knowledge without the intervention of assist- 
ance. So that where there is previously no 
science, the exercise of this original power of 
knowing is always attended with its propor- 
tionate increase of knowledge. These first 
perceptions commonly include all that can 
ever afterwards be known, yet it is only in 
the shape of rudiments, as the acorn includes 
the oak, and the subsequent necessary expan- 
sion must be effected, like the growth of the 
oak, by the enlargement of the germ. Coper- 
nicus conjectured that Yenus would appear 
with different phases like the moon, but it 
was reserved for Galileo to demonstrate the 
fact by means of the telescope. Thus a bet- 
ter knowledge of the laws of optics enabled 
one philosopher to prove what, for want of 
such knowledge, another philosopher could 



282 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

only conjecture. One truth becomes a step- 
ping-stone to another, and so onward — how 
far is yet unknown. 

The Logic of Bacon is justly regarded as 
one of the most powerful instrumentalities in 
this work. Still the efficacy of the inductive 
system is derived altogether from its spirit, 
and not from its details. The idols of the tribe, 
of the den, of the market, and of the theatre ; 
the method of exclusions, and the twenty- 
seven prerogative instances are of no value ; 
Neither is the method of induction itself, of 
much consequence, except as it ensures that 
careful regard to things without which all 
reasoning is fallacious. A syllogistic argu- 
ment is always an assumption, because it 
takes for granted the very thing to be proved ; 
this exceedingly disgusted Bacon, and led 
him to the widest extreme from such an ab- 
surd mode of reasoning. The syllogism man- 
ifests neither care nor proof, but induction 
largely comprehends both. It is here that we 
perceive the true character of his system, and 
it is by this feature alone that the system has 
achieved such wonders in modern science. 



INVENTIONS. 283 

Nothing but the principle of this philosophy 
is applicable to science ; the followers of 
Bacon have never been inclined to avail 
themselves of his formulas, nor is it probable 
that they could have done so successfully had 
they been thus disposed. Bacon's own suc- 
cess is evidence enough that his rules are only 
of secondary consequence, for without them — 
but not without the care which is the founda- 
tion of all his rules — he made one of the 
greatest discoveries of modern times — the 
true method of philosophizing. Since this 
discovery, dogmatism has rarely passed for 
science ; and since dogmatism has failed to 
pass for science, the real inquirer has as rarely 
failed in his researches. 

Before this reform in logic, words had been 
the grand instrument of invention, and facts 
were never allowed to have weight against 
propositions ; but the inductive system swept 
words totally away, and left nothing but facts 
to the use of the intellectual powers. 

III. Many pretend to be seeking truth, or 
aiming at improvements, while it is evident 
to all discerning minds that they either have 



284 YOUNG- MAN'S BOOK. 

no just idea of what the search requires, or 
are purposely trifling with the pursuit. If 
of the first class, they are ever learning and 
never able to come to the knowledge of 
the truth, and this because they seek it not in 
the right manner ; if of the second class, they 
are daring speculatists or idle system builders 
who wish to burlesque the scanty knowledge 
of man, and reproach a prudence but too well 
justified by the present condition of the hu- 
man faculties. To guard against perversion 
and dissipation of this kind, we shall notice 
some of the characteristics of the true inquirer. 
1. Utility. — As he who works may be dis- 
tinguished from him who plays by the greater 
degree of usefulness which marks his efforts, 
so he who is really aiming at improvement 
and means to increase the sum of human 
knowledge, may be known by the advantages 
which he proposes to confer in case he shall 
be successful. What worthy object has any 
mere theorist ever had in view ? Such men 
wish to amuse themselves or the world by 
strange combinations, and by exhibiting a 
sort of comic in the department of science. 



INVENTIONS. 285 

Odd, unlooked-for, and hasty solutions of 
things mysterious, are the delight of such ge- 
niuses. If they study Astronomy, it is not to 
enlarge commerce and exalt our ideas of the 
Supreme Being, but simply to tell how the 
world was made ; they have a decided pen- 
chant for the useless, and would drag us 
through the worlds of ether in search of 
truths which, if ever gained, would be lighter 
in value than the ether through which we 
pass to get at them. Not so with the sober 
inquirer after knowledge. He seeks for noth- 
ing which cannot be useful ; he has no time 
for things merely speculative. 

2. Modesty. — The inquiries of one in search 
of truth are always unassuming, and free 
from that bold — that forward, unblushing 
front which characterizes the mere theorist 
and the dealer in dogmatism. He who means 
to make his word or his ingenuity pass for 
science, will tell you with the greatest delib- 
eration that things are thus, merely because 
he thinks them thus, and not because he has 
any indubitable evidence for what he alleges- 
In this it would be well for all to imitate Sir 



286 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

Isaac Newton, who gave his views to the 
world under two heads, facts and queries. He 
could not, — though of all men he had the 
best right to, — ask mankind to take his mere 
conjectures for indisputable truths. Yet, how 
often do we see men offering their own fan- 
cies to the world as reliable facts — verities 
that may not even be questioned. What is 
this but impudence ? And what but folly can 
allow such impudence to pass unreproved ? 

3. Docility. — Lord Bacon has justly said 
that there is no conquering nature but by sub- 
mission.* He illustrates this in another place 
as follows : "There is no other entrance open 
to the kingdom of nature than to the kingdom 
of heaven, into which no one may enter except 
in the form of a little child. "f Men who seek 
truth, but not with a teachable spirit, are not 
so much learners as teachers ; they profess to 
seek truth, while in fact they are only com- 
municating it. To be ready and willing to 
learn — nay, to be more ready to learn than to 
teach, is one of the most prominent character- 
istics of original investigation. ~No mind 
* Nov. Org. Aph. 3. f Interp. of Nature. 



INVENTIONS. 287 

wanting in docility can patiently and delight- 
fully glean from every source whatever is 
available of knowledge, saying constantly 
with an eminent man, "what I know not, 
God and man teach me." This spirit is 
evinced in the inductive philosophy, by that 
marked attention which is paid to minute 
circumstances. In this philosophy the fall- 
ing of an apple affords a clue to unravel the 
system of the universe. But such a circum- 
stance would never be thought to carry with 
it anything instructive — no philosopher would 
search the nature of such a trifle for the the- 
ory of the universe, unless he sat at the feet 
of nature, and believed her every work 
fraught with the same infinite wisdom. Great 
things are often only an aggregate of small 
ones ; the ocean is only a collection of drops, 
and drops are only a collection of particles. 
Now each of these particles — each of these 
drops, contains all the peculiarities of the 
whole mass, and hence, each of them is a 
fountain of truth which the teachable will not 
despise. 

4. Caution. — Industry in collecting, and 



288 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

caution in determining, are the essentials of in- 
duction. But the course of daring specula- 
tors is exactly the reverse. They look out 
upon the heavens and see luminous spots — 
and because, after getting the highest mag- 
nifying powers, these luminous spots still 
appear to be luminous spots, they gravely 
conclude that these collections of shining 
matter are young worlds just starting into 
existence. They tell us that this globe was 
once equally light and rare, and that it 
has become dense by degrees. We are in- 
formed how all this is done — it cools, it rolls, 
it consolidates, until out of thin, transparent 
matter an adamantine world is composed. 
Thanks to these gentlemen for the modus op- 
erandi by which this mundane system was 
ushered into being, though we still incline to 
believe on good authority that "in six days 
God made the world." But the astronomer 
is not alone in his fault. The geologist must 
have his share, nay the Mesmerist belongs to 
this fraternity of philosophers. The former 
sees a stone or a shell — immediately he as- 
sures us millions of years are necessary to 



INVENTIONS. 289 

such productions; the latter finds lie can 
strangely affect the nervous system of some 
individual, and hence concludes all mysteries 
are resolvable into magnetism. Miracles are 
magnetism — Christianity is magnetism. Such 
haste sets all care at defiance. And yet most 
of these errors, inexcusable as they are, can 
be traced to distinguished names in the 
learned world. 

5. Self-support. — This enterprise is charac- 
terized by a self-sustaining power. The 
object, though distant, ennobles the mind. 
Truth lends its greatness to the seeker : truth 
is dignified, and dignifies those who seek it. 
Hope mingles largely in the support of those 
who are toiling for the advancement of sci- 
ence. The greatness of their object inspires 
patience, and they are willing to labor long 
and hard for value so high. Like men con- 
scious of approaching wealth, they dread not 
to exhibit indications of poverty; they care 
not for foreign opinions, since certain pros- 
pects inwardly sustain them against all oppo- 
sition from without. 

These are the most important traits of that 

19 



290 YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. 

progress of which science is yet capable. 
That the burden of this progress is thrown 
upon self-eclucation, none can deny, for such 
)rk never was attempted by the schools, 
in self- education the chances of eminence 
not confined to an extension of science, as 
its limited means often afford an opportunity 
for re-invention and re-discovery. Hence, if 
i ice were at a stand, and all hopes of im- 
provement cut off, the solitary student might 
vet rival Newton, for he might yet make the 
discoveries that Newton made. To those, 
however, who follow a text-book or a teacher, 
such achievements are impossible ; and they 
can only hope to eqnal the great masters of 
science when they have advanced to where 
helps of this kind are no longer available. 
Nevertheless, the desire of original improve- 
ment should not act as a dissuasive from the 
usual means of education, because the world 
is not so much to be benefited by re-discov- 
ering what is already known, as by augment- 
ing the sum of knowledge. Nor is the labor 
of passing, in any particular direction, to the 
extreme of accredited science, such as to dis- 



INVENTIONS. 291 

courage a reasonable ambition. It may be 
that in the very outset, while canvassing the 
rudiments only, new light will break in upon 
the mind, and thus not only shorten the pro- 
cess of acquisition by enlarging comprehen- 
sion, but revolutionize the science by super- 
seding the deductions of previous inquirers. 



THE END. 



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